THE  ,LIFE 


OF 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


UNIVERSITY 


BY 


ISAAC   N.  ARNOLD, 

\  v 

Author  of  "  The  Life  of  Benedict  Arnold,"  etc.  ;  Late  President 

of  the  Chicago  Historical  Society ;  Member  of 

Congress  during  the  Civil  War. 


THIRD    EDITION. 


CHICAGO: 
JANSEN,    McCLURG,    &   COMPANY. 

1885. 


COPYRIGHT 

BY  JANSEN,  McCLURG,  &  CO. 
A.  D.  1884. 


R.  R.  DOXXKT.LKY  &  Boys,  THK  LAKRSTPR  PRESS.  CHICAGO.  ILL. 


INTRODUCTION. 

BY  THE  HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE. 

This  work — "The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln" — was 
completed  only  a  few  days  before  the  death  of  the  dis 
tinguished  author,  the  HON.  ISAAC  N.  ARNOLD.  He  did 
not  live  to  oversee  its  publication.  That  was  entrusted  to 
competent  and  friendly  hands;  and  the  work,  with  its  chap 
ter  heads  and  its  full  and  elaborate  index,  is  herewith  pre 
sented  to  an  indulgent  public. 

Few  had  known  Mr.  Lincoln  better  than  had  Mr.  Arnold, 
and  no  man  was  more  familiar  with  his  life  or  had  studied 
more  profoundly  his  personal  and  political  character,  or  his 
public  career.  They  had  been  personal  friends  for  a  quar 
ter  of  a  century.  They  were  much  together  in  the  courts 
and  often  associated  in  the  trial  of  causes,  and  had  been 
opposing  counsel  in  important  litigation.  Their  long 
acquaintance  and  association  had  made  them  to  know  each 
other  well  and  had  engendered  mutual  respect  and  mutual 
regard. 

From  the  time  that  Mr.  Arnold  entered  Congress,  at  the 
breaking  out  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion,  he  became  one  of 
the  most  trusted  advisers  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  few  men  out 
side  of  the  Cabinet  were  more  frequently  consulted  by  him 
in  important  matters.  No  one  knew  better  Mr.  Lincoln's 

3 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

thoughts  and  intentions  than  Mr.  Arnold,  and  no  one 
enjoyed  his  confidence  to  a  higher  degree.  It  may  be  truly 
said  that  no  man  was  better  qualified  to  write  a  serious  and 
authoritative  life  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  to  enlighten  the 
public  in  respect  to  the  character,  career  and  services  of 
that  illustrious  man. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  for  some  time  prior  to  the 
assassination  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  Mr.  Arnold  had  contemplated 
writing  his  life.  Previous  to  that  event,  and  while  yet  a 
member  of  Congress,  he  had  commenced  to  write  the 
"  History  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Overthrow  of 
Slavery,"  which  he  completed  and  published  in  1867.  He 
brought  to  the  preparation  of  that  work  the  qualities  of  an 
able  and  conscientious  historian,  who  wrote  very  largely 
from  personal  knowledge  and  personal  observation.  It  is  a 
book  of  real  interest  and  exceptional  historic  value.  Impor 
tant  and  valuable  facts  are  to  be  obtained  therein  which  are 
not  to  be  found  elsewhere. 

This  work  was  never  entirely  satisfactory  to  Mr.  Arnold, 
so  far  as  it  related  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  hence  some  two 
years  since  he  determined  to  write  in  a  stricter  sense  the 
life  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  the  light  of  additional  material  he 
had  gathered,  and  disconnected  with  the  history  of  the 
overthrow  of  slavery,  except  in  so  far  as  the  subject  was 
connected  generally  with  the  administration  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 

Stimulated  by  his  admiration  and  friendship  for  Mr. 
Lincoln,  Mr.  Arnold  entered  on  his  work  con  amore,  and 
devoted  to  it  his  most  earnest  thoughts  and  great  labor.  He 
undertook  his  self-imposed  task  with  the  idea  and  purpose 
that  it  would  be  the  finishing  work  of  his  life.  His  great 
object  was  to  write  a  life  worthy  of  the  man.  He  has  taken 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

the  utmost  pains  to  procure  reliable  material,  to  verify  all 
statements  of  fact,  and  to  bring  out  the  incidents  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  life,  with  candor,  fairness,  and  accuracy. 

Mr.  Arnold  has  shown  in  his  life  of  Mr.  Lincoln  that  he 
has  a  full  and  just  appreciation  of  the  true  province  of 
history.  He  was  guided  by  that  spirit  which  governed  the 
greatest  historian  of  modern  times,  M.  Adolph  Thiers.  M. 
Xavier  Marmier,  in  his  admirable  discourse  before  the 
French  Academy,  quotes  M.  Thiers  as  saying  : 

"  I  have  for  the  mission  of  history  such  a  respect,  that 
the  fear  of  alleging  an  inexact  fact  fills  me  with  a  sort  of 
consternation.  I  have  no  repose  till  I  have  discovered  the 
proof  of  the  fact,  the  object  of  my  doubt.  I  seek  it  wher 
ever  it  ought  to  be,  and  I  never  stop  till  I  have  found  it,  or 
when  I  have  acquired  the  certainty  that  it  does  not  exist." 

In  the  present  volume  Mr.  Arnold  has  shown  himself,  in 
this  regard,  a  worthy  disciple  of  M.  Thiers. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

ANCESTRY    AND    EARLY    LIFE. 

Early  History  of  the  Family. — Removal  of  the  President's  Grandfather 
from  Virginia  to  Kentucky. — He  is  Killed  by  the  Indians. — Auto 
biography  of  the  President. — His  Father's  Marriage. — His  Mother. 
— Their  Children. — Death  of  His  Mother. — His  Education. — Books 
He  Read. — Father's  Second  Marriage. — Trip  to  New  Orleans.  13-27 


CHAPTER   II. 

LIFE    AT    NEW    SALEM. 

The  Lincoln  Family  Remove  to  Illinois. — Second  Trip  to  New  Orleans. 
— Life  at  New  Salem. — Jack  Armstrong  and  the  Clary  Grove  Boys. 
— Black  Hawk  War. — Acquires  the  Name  of  "  Honest  Abe." — Post 
master  at  Salem.  —  Trust  Funds.  —  Studies  Law. — A  Surveyor. — 
Story  of  Anne  Rutledge. — Elected  to  the  Legislature.  .  28-44 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE    ILLINOIS    LEGISLATURE. 

Lincoln  at  Twenty-Five. — At  Vandalia. — Re-elected  in  1836. — Replies 
to  Forquer.  —  To  Dr.  Early.  —  To  Col.  Taylor.  —  State  Capital 
Removed  from  Vandalia  to  Springfield. — Anti-Slavery  Protest. — 
Re-elected  in  1838. — Removes  to  Springfield. — Re-elected  in  1840. — 
Partnership  with  John  T.  Stuart. — Riding  the  Circuit.  .  45-60 

7 


8  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   IV. 

MISCELLANEOUS    SPEECHES    AND    MARRIAGE. 

Speech  of  1837  on  Perpetuation  of  the  Government. — Reply  to  Douglas 
in  1839. — Temperance  Address. — Partnership  with  Judge  Logan. — 
Campaign  of  1840. — Protects  Baker  while  Speaking. — Mary  Todd. — 
Lincoln's  Courtship.  —  Challenged  by  Shields.  —  His  Marriage. — 
Entertains  President  Van  Buren. — Elected  to  Congress.  .  61-75 

CHAPTER   V. 

CONGRESS    AND    THE    BAR. 

Lincoln  Takes  His  Seat  in  Congress. — His  Colleagues  and  Associates. 
— How  He  Impressed  Them. — His  First  Speech. — Speech  on  the 
Mexican  War. — Delegate  to  National  Convention. — His  Campaign 
Speech. — Introduces  Bill  to  Abolish  Slavery  in  District  of  Columbia. 
— Seeks  Appointment  as  Commissioner  of  Land  Office. — Declines  to 
be  Governor  of  Oregon. — At  the  Bar. — Defends  Bill  Armstrong. — 
Lincoln  as  an  Advocate,  Lawyer  and  Orator.  .  .  .  76-91 

CHAPTER   VI. 

THE    IRREPRESSIBLE   CONFLICT. 

Slavery  at  the  Adoption  of  the  Constitution. — Efforts  for  its  Abolition. 
— Ordinance  of  1787. — Its  Growth. — Its  Acquisition  of  Territory. — 
Florida. —  Louisiana. —  The  Missouri  Compromise. — Annexation  of 
Texas. — The  Wilmot  Proviso. —  Mexican  Provinces  Seized. — The 
Liberty  Party.— Its  Growth.— The  Buffalo  Convention.— The  Com 
promise  of  1850 .  .  92-107 

CHAPTER    VII. 

THE    STRUGGLE    FOR    KANSAS. 

Stephen  Arnold  Douglas. — Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise. — The 
Nebraska  Bill. — Condition  of  Matters  in  Kansas. — Lincoln  Comes 
Forward  as  the  Champion  of  Freedom. — Speeches  at  Springfield  and 
Peoria. — Election  of  Trumbull  to  the  United  States  Senate.  108-123 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE    ORGANIZATION    OF    THE    REPUBLICAN    PARTY. 

The  Republican  Party. — The  Bloomington  Convention. — Platform. — 
William  H.  Bissell. —  Republican  Convention  at  Pittsburgh. — At 
Philadelphia.  —  Nomination  of  Fremont  and  Dayton.  —  Douglas 
Opposes  the  Lecompton  Constitution.  —  Dred  Scott  Decision. — 
Lincoln  Nominated  for  the  Senate. — Speech  at  Springfield,  June, 
1858 124-138 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE    LINCOLN    AND    DOUGLAS   DEBATE. 

Douglas's  Return  to  Illinois. — Speeches  of  Lincoln  and  Douglas  at 
Chicago,  Bloomington  and  Springfield. — Lincoln  and  Douglas  Com 
pared. —  The  Joint  Discussions  at  Charleston. — At  Freeport. — At 
Alton.  ..........  139-152 


CHAPTER   X. 

LINCOLN    BECOMES   PRESIDENT. 

Douglas  Re-elected  to  the  Senate. — Lincoln  Assessed  for  Expenses  of 
the  Canvass. — Visit  to  Kansas. — Called  to  Ohio. — Speaks  at  Colum 
bus  and  Cincinnati. —  In  the  New  England  States. — He  Shrinks 
from  the  Candidacy. — The  Cooper  Institute  Speech. —  Is  Nomi 
nated  for  President. — The  Campaign.  —  Douglas's  Canvass. —  Lin 
coln's  Election.  ........  153-171 


CHAPTER   XI. 

LINCOLN    REACHES    WASHINGTON. 

Buchanan's  Weakness. — Traitors  in  his  Cabinet. —  Efforts  to  Compro 
mise. — Seven  States  Secede  and  Organize  Provisional  Government. — 
The  Counting  of  the  Electoral  Vote. — Lincoln  Starts  for  Washing 
ton. —  His  Journey. — The  Assassination  Plot. —  His  Arrival  at  the 
Capital. 172-187 


IO  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   XII. 

LINCOLN    IN    THE    WHITE    HOUSE. 

Lincoln's  Inauguration. —  His  Cabinet. —  Douglas's  Prophecy. —  South 
Carolina,  the  Prodigal  Son. — Douglas's  Rallying  Cry  for  the  Union. 
— His  Death. —  Difficulties  of  the  President. —  Rebels  Begin  the 
War. — Uprising  of  the  People. — Death  of  Ellsworth. — Great  Britain 
and  France  Recognize  the  Confederates  as  Belligerents. —  Negroes 
Declared  "  Contraband."  ......  188-219 

CHAPTER   XIII. 

EXTRA    SESSION    OF    CONGRESS. 

Prominent  Members  of  37th  Congress. 4- President's  Message.— Vacant 
Chairs  of  Prominent  Rebels. — Baker's  Reply  to  Breckenridge. — 
Andrew  Johnson.  —  Owen  Lovejoy.  —  Law  to  Free  the  Slaves  of 
Rebels. — Bull  Run. -{—Fremont's  Order  Freeing  Slaves  Modified  by 
the  President.>— Capture  and  Release  of  Mason  and  Slidell.  220-236 

CHAPTER   XIV. 

EFFORTS  FOR  PEACEFUL  EMANCIPATION. 

President's  Message. —  Condition  of  the  Country. —  Death  of  Baker. — 
Stanton,  Secretary  of  War. — Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia. — Prohibition  in  the  Territories. — Employment  of  Negroes 
as  Soldiers. — Emancipation  in  the  Border  States.  .  237-252 

CHAPTER   XV. 

THE    EMANCIPATION    PROCLAMATION. 

Lincoln  and  Emancipation. — Greeley  Demands  It. —  The  People  Pray 
for  It. —  McClellan's  Warning.  —  Crittenden's  Appeal.  —  Lovejoy 's 
Response. — The  Proclamation  Issued. — Its  Reception. — Question  of 
Its  Validity.  ........  253-271 

CHAPTER   XVI. 

MILITARY    OPERATIONS    IN    l86l-l862. 

Battles  in  the  West. — Belmont  to  Corinth. — Successes  in  the  South. — 
New  Orleans  Captured. — The  Monitor. — McClellan  and  the  Presi 
dent. — Pope's  Campaign.  — McClellan  Re-instated.  .  272-294 


CONTENTS.  I  I 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

ANTIETAM    AND    CHANCELLORSVILLE. 

Harper's  Ferry  Captured. —  Antietam. —  McClellan's  Delay. —  Relieved 
of  Command. —  Burnside  Appointed.  —  Fredericksburg.  —  Burnside 
Resigns. — Hooker  Succeeds  Him. — Lincoln's  Letter  to  Hooker. — 
Chancellorsville 295-305 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

THE    TIDE    TURNS. 

The  Conscription. — West  Virginia  Admitted. —  The  War  Powers. — 
Suspension  of  Habeas  Corpus.  —  Case  of  Vallandigham.  —  Grant's 
Capture  of  Vicksburg. — Gettysburg. — Lincoln's  Speech.  306-330 

CHAPTER   XIX. 

AFTER    GETTYSBURG. 

Effects  of  the  Battle. — Lee  Crosses  the  Potomac. — Chickamauga. — 
Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge. — The  Draft  Riot  in  New- 
York. — Meeting  at  Springfield. — The  President's  Letter  to  his  old 
Friends 331-341 

CHAPTER   XX. 

THE    AMENDMENT    PROPOSED. 

Debate  in  the  Senate.  —  Speeches  of  Trumbull,  Wilson,  Johnson, 
Howard  and  Others. — A  New  Year's  Call  on  the  President. — Debate 
in  the  House. — Test  Vote. — Speeches  of  Wilson,  Arnold,  Randall, 
Pendleton  and  Others. — The  Amendment  Fails.  .  .  342-356 

CHAPTER   XXI. 

PASSAGE    OF    THE    AMENDMENT. 

The  President's  Message. — His  Personal  Appeal  to  Rollins  and  Border 
States  Members. — Speeches  by  Voorhees,  Kasson,  Woodbridge  and 
Garfield.  —  Thaddeus  Stevens  Closes  the  Debate. —  The  Resolution 
Passes. —  Lincoln's  Speech  on  Its  Passage. —  Ratification  by  the 
States. — Seward  Certifies  Its  Adoption.  .  .  .  357-368 


i  2  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    XXII. 

GRANT    AND    SHERMAN. 

General  Grant  Comes  to  the  Potomac. — Sherman  Goes  Through  Dixie 
to  the  Ocean.  —  Fort  McAllister  Taken.  —  Savannah  Falls.  —  The 
Alabama  is  Sunk. — Farragut  Captures  Mobile.  .  .  369-383 

CHAPTER   XXIII. 

THE    SECOND    TERM. 

Lincoln  Renominated  and  Re-elected.  —  His  Administration.  —  Peace 
Conference.  —  Greeley  and  the  Rebel  Emissaries.  —  Blair's  Visit 
to  Richmond.  —  Hampton  Roads  Conference.  —  Second  Inaugu 
ration 384-405 

CHAPTER   XXIV. 

THE    APPROACHING    END. 

The  Sanitary  and  Christian  Commissions.  —  Lincoln's  Sympathy  with 
Suffering. — Proposed  Retaliation. — Treatment  of  Negro  Prisoners. — 
Lincoln's  Reception  at  Baltimore. — Plans  for  Reconstruction. — 
Views  Upon  the. Negro  Franchise. — His  Clemency.  .  406-417 

CHAPTER   XXV. 

VICTORY    AND    DEATH. 

•Conference  of  Lincoln,  Grant  and  Sherman. —  Richmond  Falls. —  Lee 
Surrenders. — Davis  Captured.— Lincoln's  Visit  to  Richmond. — Last 
Day  of  His  Life. —  His  Assassination. —  Funeral. —  The  World's 
Grief.  —  Mrs.  Lincoln  Distracted.  —  Injustice  to  Her.  —  Pier 
Death.  418-440 

CHAPTER   XXVI. 

CONCLUSION 441-454 

INDEX  ...  455 


:FE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTER  I. 


ANCESTRY  AND   EARLY   LIFE. 

EARLY  HISTORY  OF  THE  FAMILY. —  REMOVAL  OF  THE  PRESIDENT'S 
GRANDFATHER  FROM  VIRGINIA  TO  KENTUCKY. —  HE  is  KILLED  BY 
THE  INDIANS. —  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  THE  PRESIDENT. —  His  FATH 
ER'S  MARRIAGE. —  His  MOTHER. — THEIR  CHILDREN. —  DEATH  OF 
His  MOTHER. —  His  EDUCATION. —  BOOKS  HE  READ. —  His  FATH 
ER'S  SECOND  MARRIAGE. —  WOODCRAFT. —  TRIP  TO  NEW  ORLEANS. 

HISTORY  furnishes  the  record  of  few  lives  at  once  so 
eventful  and  important,  and  ending  so  tragically,  as  that  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  Poets  and  orators,  artists  and  histo 
rians,  have  tried  to  depict  his  character  and  illustrate  his 
career,  but  the  great  epic  of  his  life  has  yet  to  be  written. 
We  are  probably  too  near  him  in  point  of  time  fully  to  com 
prehend  and  appreciate  his  greatness,  and  the  influence  he 
is  to  exert  upon  his  country  and  the  world.  The  storms 
which  marked  his  tempestuous  career  have  scarcely  yet  fully 
subsided,  and  the  shock  of  his  dramatic  death  is  still  felt  ; 
but  as  the  clouds  of  dust  and  smoke  which  filled  the  air  dur 
ing  his  life  clear  away,  his  character  will  stand  out  in  bolder 
relief  and  more  perfect  outline.  I  write  with  the  hope  that 
I  may  contribute  something  which  shall  aid  in  forming  a  just 
estimate  of  his  character,  and  a  true  appreciation  of  his 
services. 

13 


14  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  to  a  very  humble  station 
in  life,  and  his  early  surroundings  were  rude  and  rough,  but 
/his  ancestors  for  generations  had  been  of  that  tough  fiber, 
and  vigorous  physical  organization  and  mental  energy,  so 
often  found  among  the  pioneers  on  the  frontier  of  Ameri 
can  civilization.  His  forefathers  removed  from  Massachu 
setts  to  Pennsylvania,  in  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury;  and  from  Pennsylvania  some  members  of  the  family 
moved  to  Virginia,  and  settled  in  the  valley  of  the  Shenan- 
doah,  in  the  county  of  Rockingham,  whence  his  immediate 
ancestors  came  to  Kentucky.  For  several  generations  they 
kept  on  the  crest  of  the  wave  of  Western  settlement.  The 
family  were  English,  and  came  from  Norfolk  County,  Eng 
land,  in  about  the  year  1638,  when  they  settled  in  Hingham, 
Massachusetts.  Mordecai  Lincoln,  the  English  emigrant 
who  thus  settled  in  Massachusetts,  removed,  afterwards  to 
Pennsylvania,  and  was  the  great-great-grandfather  of  the 
President.  His  son  John,  who  was  the  great-grandfather  of 
the  President,  moved  to  Virginia,  and  had  a  son  Abraham, 
the  grandfather  of  the  President.  He  and  his  son  Thomas 
moved,  in  1782,  from  Rockingham  County,  Virginia,  to 
Kentucky.1  It  was  in  the  same  year  that  General  George 

1.  The  following  statement,  of  which  a  fac-simile  is  now  before  me,  was  drawn 
up  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  at  the  request  of  J.  W.  Fell,  of  Bloomington,  Illinois  : 

I  was  born  Feb.  12,  1809,  in  Hardin  County,  Kentucky.  My  parents  were  both 
born  in  Virginia,  of  undistinguished  families — second  families,  perhaps  I  should  say. 
My  mother,  who  died  in  my  tenth  year,  was  of  a  family  of  the  name  of  Hanks,  some 
.of  whom  now  reside  in  Adams,  and  others  in  Macon  Counties,  Illinois.  My  paternal 
grandfather,  Abraham  Lincoln,  emigrated  from  Rockingham  County,  Virginia,  to 
Kentucky,  about  1781  or  '2,  where,  a  year  or  two  later,  he  was  killed  by  Indians, 
not  in  battle,  but  by  stealth,  when  he  was  laboring  to  open  a  farm  in  the  forest.  His 
ancestors,  who  were  Quakers,  went  to  Virginia  from  Berks  County,  Pennsylvania. 
An  effort  to  identify  them  with  the  New  England  family  of  the  same  name,  ended  in 
nothing  more  definite  than  a  similarity  of  Christian  names  in  both  families,  such  as 
Enoc"h,  Levi,  Mordecai,  Solomon,  Abraham,  and  the  like. 

My  father,  at  the  death  of  his  father,  was  but  six  years  of  age,  and  he  grew  up 
literally  without  education.  He  removed  from  Kentucky  to  what  is  now  Spencer 
County,  Indiana,  in  my  eighth  year.  "VVe  reached  our  new  home  about  the  time  the 
state  came  into  the  Union.  It  was  a  wild  region,  with  many  bears  and  other  wild 
animals  still  inthe  woods.  There  I  grew  up.  There  were  some  schools,so  called,but  no 
qualification  was  ever  required  of  a  teacher  beyond  "reading  writing  and '.  ctpherin* ' ' 
to  the  Rule  of  Three.  If  a  straggler  supposed  to  understand  Latin  happened  to  sojourn 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  LIFE.  15 

Rogers  Clark  captured  Kaskaskia,  and  on  the  i2th  of  Sep 
tember,  1782,  Patrick  Henry,  Governor  of  Virginia,  ap 
pointed  John  Todd  commandant  of  the  county  of  Illinois, 
then  a  part  of  Virginia.  These  ancestors  of  the  President 
were  rough,  hardy,  fearless  men,  and  familiar  with  wood 
craft  ;  men  who  could  endure  the  extremes  of  fatigue  and  v 
exposure,  who  knew  how  to  find  food  and  shelter  in  the  for 
est  ;  brave,  self-reliant,  true  and  faithful  to  their  friends,  and 
dangerous  to  their  enemies. 

The  grandfather  of  the  President  and  his  son  Thomas 
emigrated  to  Kentucky  in  1781  or  1782,  and  settled  in  Mer 
cer  county.  This  grandfather  is  named  in  the  surveys  of 
Daniel  Boone  as  having  purchased  of  the  United  States 
five  hundred  acres  of  land. l 

A  year  or  two  after  this  settlement  in  Kentucky,  Abra 
ham  Lincoln,  having  erected  a  log  cabin  near  "  Bear  Grass 

in  the  neighborhood,  he  was  looked  upon  as  a  wizard.  There  was  absolutely  nothing 
to  excite  ambition  for  education.  Of  course,  when  I  came  of  age  I  did  not  know 
much.  Still  somehow,  I  could  read,  write,  and  cipher  to  the  Rule  of  Three,  but  that 
was  all.  I  have  not  been  to  school  since.  The  little  advance  I  now  have  upon  this 
store  of  education,  I  have  picked  up  from  time  to  time  under  the  pressure  of  neces 
sity. 

I  was  raised  to  farm  work,  which  I  continued  till  I  was  twenty-two.  At  twenty- 
one  I  came  to  Illinois,  and  passed  the  first  year  in  Macon  County.  Then  I  got  to  New 
Salem,  at  that  time  in  Sangamon,  now  in  Menard  County,  where  I  remained  a  year  as 
a  sort  of  clerk  in  a  store.  Then  came  the  Black  Hawk  war,  and  I  was  elected  a  Cap 
tain  of  Volunteers — a  success  which  gave  me  more  pleasure  than  any  I  have  had  since. 
I  went  [through]  the  campaign,  was  elated,  ran  for  the  Legislature  the  same  year 
(1832),  and  was  beaten — the  only  time  I  have  ever  been  beaten  by  the  people.  The 
next,  and  three  succeeding  biennial  elections,  I  was  elected  to  the  Legislature.  I  was 
not  a  candidate  afterwards.  During  this  legislative  period  I  had  studied  law,  and 
removed  to  Springfield  to  practice  it.  In  1846  I  was  once  elected  to  the  Lower  House 
of  Congress.  Was  not  a  candidate  for  re-election.  From  1849  to  1854,  both  inclusive, 
practiced  law  more  assiduously  than  ever  before.  Always  a  Whig  in  politics,  and  gen 
erally  on  the  Whig  electoral  tickets,  making  active  canvasses.  I  was  losing  interest 
in  politics,  when  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  aroused  me  again.  What  I 
have  done  since  then  is  pretty  well  known. 

If  any  personal  description  of  me  is  thought  desirable,  it  may  be  said,  I  am  in 
height,  six  feet,  four  inches,  nearly  ;  lean  in  flesh,  weighing,  on  an  average,  one  hun 
dred  and  eighty  pounds  :  dark  complexion,  with  coarse  black  hair,  and  gray  eyes.  No 
other  marks  or  brands  recollected.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

1.  "  Abraham  Lincoln  enters  500  acres  of  land  on  a  Treasury  warrant  on  the 
south  side  of  Licking  Creek  or  River,  in  Kentucky."  See  the  original  Field  Book  of 
Daniel  Boone,  in  possession  of  the  Wisconsin  Historical  Society. 


1 6  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Fort,"  the  site  of  the  present  city  of  Louisville,  began  to< 
open  up  his  farm.  Shortly  after  this,  he  was  one  day,  while 
at  work  in  the  field,  waylaid,  shot,  and  instantly  killed,  by  a 
party  of  Indians.  Thomas  Lincoln,  born  in  1778,  and  the 
father  of  the  President,  was  in  the  field  with  his  father  when 
he  fell.  Mordecai  and  Josiah,  his  elder  brothers,  were  near 
by  in  the  forest.  Mordecai,  startled  by  the  shot,  saw  his 
father  fall,  and,  running  to  the  cabin,  seized  the  loaded  rifle, 
rushed  to  one  of  the  loop-holes  cut  through  the  logs  of  the 
cabin,  and  saw  the  Indian  who  had  fired;  he  had  just  caught 
the  boy,  Thomas,  and  was  running  towards  the  forest.  Point 
ing  the  rifle  through  the  logs,  and  aiming  at  a  silver  medal 
on  the  breast  of  the  Indian,  Mordecai  fired.  The  Indian 
fell,  and  the  boy,  springing  to  his  feet,  ran  to  the  open  arms 
of  his  mother,  at  the  cabin  door.  Meanwhile,  Josiah,  who 
had  run  to  the  fort  for  aid,  returned  with  a  party  of  settlers, 
who  brought  in  the  body  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  the 
Indian  who  had  been  shot.  From  this  time  throughout  his 
life,  Mordecai  was  the  mortal  enemy  of  the  Indians,  and,  it 
is  said,  sacrificed  many  in  revenge  for  the  murder  of  his 
father. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  such  scenes  that  the  ancestors  of 
the  President  were  nurtured.  They  were  contemporaries 
of  Daniel  Boone,  of  Simon  Kenton,  and  other  border  heroes 
and  Indian  fighters  on  the  frontiers,  and  were  often  engaged 
in  those  desperate  conflicts  between  the  Indians  and  the  set 
tlers,  which  gave  to  Kentucky  the  suggestive  name  of  "  the 
dark  and  bloody  ground."  J 

These  Kentucky  hunters,  of  which  the  grandfather  and 
the  father  of  the  President  are  types,  were  a  very  remarkable 
class  of  men.  They  were  brave,  sagacious,  and  self-reliant, 
ready  in  the  hour  of  danger,  frank,  generous  and  hospitable. 
Tough  and  hardy,  with  his  trusty  rifle  always  in  his  hands  or 

1.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  grandfather  of  the  President  should  have  been  a 
comrade  of  Daniel  Boone  in  Kentucky,  and  that  the  President  and  a  grandson  of 
Boone  should  have  been  fellow  soldiers  in  the  Black  Hawk  war;  both  volunteers  from 
Illinois.  See  Major  Robert  Anderson's  manuscript  sketch  of  the  Black  Hawk  war 
(quoted  hereafter),  in  possession  of  the  Chicago  Historical  Society. 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  LIFE.  I  7 

by  his  side,  his  long,  keen  knife  always  in  his  belt,  and  his 
faithful  hunting-dog  his  constant  companion,  of  greater 
endurance  and  of  far  superior  intellect,  the  Kentucky  hunter 
could  outrun  his  Indian  enemy,  or  whip  him  in  a  man  to  man 
fight.  This  man,  who  has  driven  away  or  killed  the  Indian, 
who  has  cleared  the  forests,  broken  up  and  reclaimed  the 
wilderness,  and  whose  type  still  survives  in  the  pioneer,  is  one 
of  the  most  picturesque  figures  in  American  history.  From 
this  sort  of  ancestry  have  sprung  Andrew  Jackson  and  David 
Crockett,  Benton  and  Clay,  Grant  and  Lincoln. 

Thomas  Lincoln  was  married  on  the  26.  of  September,. 
1806,  to  Nancy  Hanks,  she  being  twenty-three  and  he  / 
twenty-eight  years  of  age.  They  were  married  by  the  Rev. 
Jesse  Head,  a  Methodist  clergyman,  near  Springfield,  Ken 
tucky.  She  has  been  described  as  a  brunette,  with  dark  hair,, 
regular  features,  and  soft,  sparkling  hazel  eyes.  Her  ances 
tors  were  of  English  descent,  and  they,  like  the  Lincolns,, 
had  emigrated  from  Virginia  to  Kentucky.  Thomas  and 
his  wife  settled  on  Rock  Creek  farm,  in  Hardin  County;  and 
here,  on  the  i2th  of  February,  1809,  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
born.  He  was  the  second  child,  having  an  older  sister, 
named  Sarah.  He  had,  besides,  a  younger  brother,  named 
Thomas,  who  died  in  infancy. 

The  ancestors  of  President  Lincoln  for  several  genera 
tions  were  farmers,  and,  as  has  already  been  stated,  his  grand 
father  purchased  from  the  United  States  five  hundred  acres 
of  land.  His  father,  Thomas,  on  the  i8th  of  October,  1817, 
entered  a  quarter-section  of  government  land;  and  President 
Lincoln  left,  as  a  part  of  his  estate,  a  quarter-section  which 
he  had  received  by  patent  from  the  United  States  for  ser 
vices  rendered  as  a  volunteer  in  the  Black  Hawk  war.  So 
that  this  humble  pioneer  family  for  three  generations  owned 
land,  by  direct  grant  from  the  government,  and  in  that  sense 
may  be  said  to  have  belonged  to  "the  landed  gentry." 

It  is  curious  to  note  in  this  race  of  Lincolns  many  of  the 
same  strong  and  hardy  traits  of  character  which  have  marked 
the  founders  of  influential  historic  families  in  older  nations, 
2 


\ 


I  8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  especially  among  the  English.  Had  Abraham  Lincoln 
been  born  in  England  or  in  Normandy,  or  on  the  Rhine,  some 
centuries  ago,  he  might  have  been  the  founder  of  a  baronial 
family,  perhaps  of  a  royal  dynasty.  He  could  have  wielded 
with  ease  the  battle-axe  of  "Richard  of  the  Lion  Heart,"  or 
the  two-handed  sword  of  Guy,  the  first  Earl  of  Warwick, 
some  of  whose  characteristics  were  his  also.  Indeed,  the 
difference  between  such  men  as  Boone,  and  Kenton,  and 
Abraham  Lincoln,  the  grandfather  of  the  President,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  early  Warwicks,  the  Douglases  and  the 
•Percys  on  the  other,  is  that  the  Kentucky  heroes  were  far 
better  men  and  of  a  more  advanced  civilization. 

In  1816,  the  year  in  which  Indiana  was  admitted  into 
the  Union,  the  family  of  Lincoln  removed  from  Kentucky 
to  Spencer  County,  in  the  former  state.  It  was  a  long,  hard, 
weary  journey.  Many  streams  were  to  be  forded,  and  a  part 
of  the  way  was  through  the  primeval  forest,  where  they  were 
often  compelled  to  cut  their  path  with  the  axe.  At  the  time 
of  this  removal  the  lad  Abraham  was  in  his  eighth  year,  but 
tall,  large  and  strong  of  his  age.  The  first  things  he  had 
learned  to  use  were  the  axe  and  the  rifle,  and  with  these  he 
was  already  able  to  render  important  assistance  to  his  parents 
on  the  journey,  and  in  building  up  their  new  home.  The 
family  settled  near  Gentryville,  and  built  their  log-cabin  on 
the  top  of  an  eminence  which  sloped  gently  away  on  every 
side.  The  landscape  was  beautiful,  the  soil  rich,  and  in  a 
short  time  some  land  was  cleared  and  a  crop  of  corn  and 
vegetables  raised.  The  struggle  for  life  and  its  few  com 
forts  was  in  this  wilderness  a  very  hard  one,  and  none  but 
j  those  of  the  most  vigorous  constitution  could  succeed.  The 
i  trials,  privations,  and  hardships  incident  to  clearing,  break 
ing  up,  and  subduing  the  soil  and  establishing  a  home,  so  far 
away  from  all  the  necessaries  of  life,  taxed  the  strength  and 
endurance  of  all  to  the  utmost.  Bears,  deer  and  other  sorts 
of  wild  game  were  abundant,  and  contributed  largely  to  the 
support  of  the  family. 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  LIFE.  19 

Mrs.  Lincoln,  the  mother  of  the  President,  is  said  to  have 
been  in  her  youth  a  woman  of  beauty.  She  was  by  nature 
refined,  and  of  far  more  than  ordinary  intellect.  Her  friends  v 
spoke  of  her  as  being  a  person  of  marked  and  decided  char 
acter.  She  was  unusually  intelligent,  reading  all  the  books 
she  could  obtain.  She  taught  her  husband,  as  well  as  her 
son  Abraham,  to  read  and  write.1  She  was  a  woman_of  deep 
religious  feeling,  of  the  most  exemplary  character,  and  most 
tenderly  and  affectionately  devoted  to  her  family.  Her 
home  indicated  a  degree  of  taste  and  a  love  of  beauty  excep 
tional  in  the  wild  settlement  in  which  she  lived,  and,  judg 
ing  from  her  early  death,  it  is  probable  that  she  was  of  a 
physique  less  hardy  than  that  of  most  of  those  by  whom  she  / 
was  surrounded.  'But  in  spite  of  this  she  had  been  reared 
where  the  very  means  of  existence  were  to  be  obtained  but 
by  a  constant  struggle,  and  she  had  learned  to  use  the  rifle 
and  the  tools  of  the  backwoods  farmer,  as  well  as  the  distaff, 
the  cards,  and  the  spinning  wheel.  She  could  not  only  kill 
the  wild  game  of  the  woods,  but  she  could  also  dress  it, 
make  of  the  skins  clothes  for  her  family  and  prepare  the  flesh 
for  food.  Here  was  a  strong,  self-reliant  spirit,  which  com 
manded  the  respect  as  well  as  the  love  of  the  rugged  peo 
ple  among  whom  she  lived.  She  died  on  the  5th  of  Octo 
ber,  1818,  aged  thirty-five  years.  Two  children,  Abraham, 
and  his  sister,  Sarah,  alone  survived  her. 

The  country  burying-ground  where  she  was  laid,  half  a 
mile  from  their  log  cabin  home,  had  been  selected  perhaps 
by  herself,  and  was  situated  on  the  top  of  a  forest-covered 
hill.  There,  beneath  the  dark  shade  of  the  woods,  and 
under  a  majestic  sycamore,  they  dug  the  grave  of  the 
mother  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  funeral  ceremonies  were 
very  plain  and  simple,  but  solemn  withal,  for  nowhere  does 
death  seem  so  deeply  impressive  as  in  such  a  solitude.  At 
the  time  no  clergyman  could  be  found  in  or  near  the  settle 
ment  to  perform  the  usual  religious  rites.  But  this  devoted 
mother  had  carefully  instructed  Abraham  to  read  the  Bible, 

1.  John  Hanks. 


20  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  to  write;  and  perhaps  the  first  practical  use  the  boy 
made  of  the  acquisition  was  to  write  a  letter  to  David  Elkinr 
a  traveling  preacher  whom  the  family  had  known  in  Ken 
tucky,  begging  him  to  come  and  perform  religious  services 
over  his  mother's  grave.  The  preacher  came,  but  not  until 
some  months  afterwards,  traveling  many  miles  on  horseback 
through  the  wild  forest  to  reach  their  residence;  and  then 
the  family,  with  a  few  friends  and  neighbors,  gathered  in  the 
open  air  under  the  great  sycamore  beneath  which  they  had 
laid  the  mother's  remains.  A  funeral  sermon  was  preached, 
hymns  were  sung,  and  such  rude  but  sincere  and  impressive 
services  were  held  as  are  usual  among  the  pioneers  of  the 
frontier. 

His  mother's  death  and  these  sad  and  solemn  rites  made 
an  impression  on  the  mind  of  the  son  as  lasting  as  life.  She 
had  found  time  amidst  her  weary  toil  and  the  hard  struggle 
of  her  busy  life,  not  only  to  teach  him  to  read  and  to  write, 
but  to  impress  ineffaceably  upon  him  that  love  of  truth  and 
justice,  that  perfect  integrity  and  reverence  for  God,  for 
which  he  was  noted  all  his  life.  These  virtues  were  ever 
associated  in  his  mind  with  the  most  tender  love  and  respect 
for  his  mother.  "All  that  I  am,  or  hope  to  be,"  he  said, 
"  I  owe  to  my  angel  mother." 

The  common  free  schools  which  now  so  closely  follow 
the  heels  of  the  pioneer  and  settler  in  the  western  portions 
of  the  republic  had  not  then  reached  Indiana.  An  itinerant 
i  teacher  sometimes  "  straggled  "  into  a  settlement,  and  if  he 
could  teach  "readin',  writin',  and  cipherin' "  to  the  rule  of 
three,  he  was  deemed  qualified  to  set  up  a  school.  With 
teachers  thus  qualified,  Lincoln  attended  school  at  different 
times;  in  all  about  twelve  months.  Among  anecdotes  re 
lating  to  this  period,  there  is  one  that  peculiarly  illustrates 
his  kindness  and  his  readiness  of  invention.  A  poor,  diffi 
dent  girl,  who  spelled  definite  with  a  yt  was  threatened  and 
frightened  by  the  rude  teacher.  Lincoln,  with  a  significant 
look,  putting  one  of  his  long  fingers  to  his  eye,  enabled 
her  to  change  the  letter  in  time  to  escape  punishment.  He 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  LIFE.  21 

-early  manifested  the  most  eager  desire  to  learn.  He 
acquired  knowledge  with  great  facility.  What  he  learned  he 
learned  thoroughly,  and  everything  he  had  once  acquired 
was  always  at  his  command. 

There  were  no  libraries,  and  but  few  books,  in  the  "  back 
-settlements "  in  which  he  lived.  Among  the  few  volumes 
which  he  found  in  the  cabins  of  the  illiterate  families  by 
which  he  was  surrounded  were  the  Bible,  Bunyan's  "  Pil 
grim's  Progress,"  Weems'  "  Life  of  Washington,"  and  the 
poems  of  Robert  Burns.  These  he  read  over  and  over 
again,  until  they  became  as  familiar  as  the  alphabet.  The 
Bible  has  been  at  all  times  the  one  book  in  every  home 
and  cabin  in  the  republic;  yet  it  was  truly  said  of  Lincoln 
that  no  man,  clergyman  or  otherwise,  could  be  found  so 
familiar  with  this  book  as  he.  This  is  apparent,  both  in  his 
•conversation  and  his  writings.  There  is  hardly  a  speech  or 
state  paper  of  his  in  which  allusions  and  illustrations  taken 
from  the  Bible  do  not  appear.  Burns  he  could  quote  from 
-end  to  end.  Long  afterwards  he  wrote  a  most  able  lecture 
upon  this,  perhaps  next  to  Shakespeare,  his  favorite  poet. 

His  father  afterwards  married  Mrs.  Sally  Johnson,  of 
Kentucky,  a  widow  with  three  children.  She  was  a  noble 
woman,  sensible,  affectionate,  and  tenderly  attached  to  her 
step-son.  She  says  of  him:  "  He  read  diligently.  *  *  * 
He  read  everything  he  could  lay  his  hands  on,  and  when  he 
came  across  a  passage  that  struck  him,  he  would  write  it 
down  on  boards,  if  he  had  no  paper,  and  keep  it  until  he  had 
got  paper.  Then  he  would  copy  it,  look  at  it,  commit  it  to 
memory,  and  repeat  it."  He  kept  a  scrap-book,  into  which 
he  copied  everything  which  particularly  pleased  him.  His 
step-mother  adds:  "  He  never  gave  me  a  cross  word  or 
look,  and  never  refused,  in  fact  or  appearance,  to  do  any 
thing  I  requested  of  him."  He  loved  to  study  more  than  to 
hunt,  although  his  skill  with  the  rifle  was  well  known,  for 
while  yet  a  boy  he  had  brought  down  with  his  father's  rifle, 
a  wild  turkey  at  which  he  had  shot  through  an  opening 
between  the  logs  of  the  cabin. 


22  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  family  consisted  now  of  his  father  and  step-mother, 
his  sister  Sarah,  sometimes  called  Nancy,  the  three  chil 
dren  of  his  step-mother,  and  himself.  The  names  of  Mrs. 
Johnson's  children  were  John,  Sarah,  and  Alexander.  They 
all  went  to  school  together,  sometimes  walking  four  or  five 
miles,  and  taking  with  them  for  their  dinner,  cakes  made  of 
the  coarse  meal  of  the  Indian  corn  (maize),  and  known  as 
"corn  dodgers."  The  settlers  used  the  phrase  "corn 
dodgers  and  common  doings,"  to  indicate  ordinary  fare,  as 
distinguished  from  the  luxury  of  "  white  bread  and  chicken 
fixings."  In  these  years  he  wore  a  cap  made  from  the  skin 
of  the  coon  or  squirrel,  buckskin  breeches,  a  hunting  shirt 
of  deerskin,  or  a  linsey-woolsey  shirt,  and  very  coarse  cow 
hide  shoes.  His  food  was  the  "corn  dodger  "  and  the  game 
of  the  forests  and  prairies.  The  tools  he  most  constantly 
.used  were  the  axe,  the  maul,  the  hoe  and  the  plough.  His 
I  life  was  one  of  constant  and  hard  manual  labor. 

The  settlers  on  the  frontier,  both  in  Indiana  and  Illinois, 
whose  homes  dotted  the  edges  of  the  timber,  or  were  pitched 
along  the  banks  of  streams,  were  so  far  apart  at  that  time 
that  they  could  rarely  see  the  smoke  from  each  other's 
cabins.  The  mother  with  her  own  hands  carded  and  spun 
the  rolls  of  flax  and  wool  on  her  own  spinning-wheel.  She 
and  her  daughters  wove  the  cloth,  dyed  it,  and  made  up  the 
garments  her  children  wore.  The  utensils  of  the  farm  and 
the  furniture  of  the  cabin  were  rude,  primitive,  and  often 
home-made.  Pewter  plates  and  wooden  trenchers  were  used. 
The  tea  and  coffee  cups  were  made  of  japanned  tin;  these, 
and  the  shells  of  the  gourd,  were  the  usual  drinking-vessels. 
In  those  days  Lincoln  ate  his 

"Milk  and  bread 

With  pewter  spoon  and  bowl  of  wood, 
On  the  door-stone,  gray  and  rude." 

The  wild  thorn  and  the  acacia  furnished  a  good  substitute 
for  pins.  The  axe,  the  rifle,  the  maul,  and  the  plough  were 
the  farmer's  tools  and  means  of  livelihood.  Every  child, 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  LIFE.  23 

boy  or  girl,  was  early  trained  to  habits  of  industry.  The 
people  were  kind  and  neighborly,  always  ready  to  help  one 
another,  and  were  frugal,  industrious,  and  moral.  There 
was  a  quick  sense  of  justice  among  them.  No  gross  wrong,, 
fraud,  or  injustice,  but  was  promptly  punished,  and,  if  too 
often  repeated,  the  offender  was  expelled  from  the  com 
munity. 

Young  Abraham  borrowed  of  the  neighbors  and  read\/ 
every  book  he  could  hear  of  in  the  settlement  within  a  wide 
circuit.  If  by  chance  he  heard  of  a  book  that  he  had  not 
read,  he  would  walk  many  miles  to  borrow  it.  Among  other 
volumes,  he  borrowed  of  one  Crawford,  Weems'  "  Life  of 
Washington."  Reading  it  with  the  greatest  eagerness,  he 
took  it  to  bed  with  him  in  the  loft  of  the  cabin,  and  read  on 
until  his  nubbin  of  tallow  candle  had  burned  out.  Then  he 
placed  the  book  between  the  logs  of  the  cabin,  that  it  might 
be  at  hand  as  soon  as  there  was  light  enough  in  the  morn 
ing  to  enable  him  to  read.  But  during  the  night  a  violent 
rain  came  on,  and  he  awoke  to  find  his  book  wet  through 
and  through.  Drying  it  as  well  as  he  could,  he  went  to 
Crawford  and  told  him  of  the  mishap,  and,  as  he  had  no 
money  to  pay  for  it,  offered  to  work  out  the  value  of  the 
injured  volume.  Crawford  fixed  the  price  at  three  days* 
work,  and  the  future  President  pulled  corn  three  days,  and 
thus  became  the  owner  of  the  fascinating  book.  He  thought 
the  labor  well  invested.  He  read,  over  and  over  again,  this 
graphic  and  enthusiastic  sketch  of  Washington's  career,  and 
no  boy  ever  turned  over  the  pages  of  Cooper's  "  Leather 
Stocking  Tales  "  with  more  intense  delight  than  that  with 
which  Lincoln  read  of  the  exploits  and  adventures  and  vir 
tues  of  this  American  hero.  Following  his  plough  in  break 
ing  the  prairie,  he  pondered  over  the  story  of  Washington^ 
and  longed  to  imitate  him.  Perhaps  there  is  no  biography 
in  the  language  better  calculated  to  exert  a  lasting  influence 
on  an  ingenuous  and  ambitious  boy,  situated  as  he  then  was, 
than  this  of  Weems'.  Its  enthusiasm  was  contagious,  and 


24  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Lincoln  began  to  dream  of  being  himself  a  doer  of  great 
deeds.  Why  might  not  he  also  be  a  soldier  and  a  patriot  ? 
Bred  in  solitude,  brooding  and  thoughtful,  he  began  very 
early  to  study  the  means  of  success,  and  to  prepare  himself 
for  a  life  which,  as  we  shall  see  by  and  by,  he  early  had  a 
presentiment  was  to  be  an  eventful  one. 

He  now  set  himself  resolutely  to  learn,  to  educate  him 
self.  It  has  been  a  matter  of  surprise  that,  with  such  meagre 
opportunities,  he  became  a  man  of  such  general  intelligence 
and  culture.  But  when  it  is  remembered  that,  united  with  an 
intense  desire  to  learn,  he  had  great  facility  in  acquisition; 
that  he  early  formed  the  important  habit  of  learning  thor 
oughly  and  going  to  the  bottom  of  everything  he  studied; 
and  that  his  memory  was  both  ready  and  tenacious  enough 
to  enable  him  to  retain  forever  what  he  had  once  learned; 
it  will  not  seem  so  surprising.  His  habits  of  study,  of  con 
stant  investigation  and  acquisition,  he  retained  up  to  the  day 
of  his  death.  He  studied  Euclid,  Algebra,  and  Latin,  when' 
traveling  the  circuit  as  a  lawyer.  He  began  early  to  exercise 
himself  in  writing  prose  and  in  making  speeches.  One  of 
the  companions  of  his  boyhood  says:  "  He  was  always  read 
ing,  writing,  cyphering,  writing  poetry."  "He  would  go  to 
the  store  of  an  afternoon  and  evening,  and  his  jokes  and 
stories  were  so  odd,  so  witty,  so  humorous,  that  all  the  peo 
ple  of  the  town  would  gather  around  him."1  *  *  *  * 
"He  would  sometimes  keep  his  crowd  until  midnight."* 
"  He  was  a  great  reader,  and  a  good  talker." 

In  after  life,  when  pronouncing  a  eulogy  on  Henry  Clay, 
whose  opportunities  for  education  at  schools  were  little  bet 
ter  than  his  own,  Lincoln  said:  "His  example  teaches  us 
that  one  can  scarcely  be  so  poor,  but  that,  if  he  will,  he  can 
acquire  sufficient  education  to  get  through  the  world 
respectably. "•  A  truth  of  which  he  himself  furnished  a  still 
more  striking  illustration. 

1.  Dennis  Hanks. 

2.  "I  would  get  tired,  want  to  go  home,  curse  him  for  staying." — Dennis  Hanks. 

3.  See  Lincoln's  Eulogy  on  Henry  Clay,  in  July,  1852. 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  LIFE.  25 

In  practicing  his  speeches  on  political  and  other  subjects, 
he  made  them  so  amusing  and  attractive  that  his  father  had 
to  forbid  his  speaking  during  working  hours,  "  for,"  said  he, 
"when  Abe  begins  to  speak,  all  the  hands  flock  to  hear 
him." 

He  attended  court  at  Boonville,  the  county  seat  of  War 
wick  County,  to  witness  a  trial  for  murder,  at  which  one  of 
the  Breckenridges,  from  Kentucky,  made  a  very  eloquent 
speech  for  the  defence.  The  boy  was  carried  away  with 
intense  admiration,  and  was  so  enthusiastic,  that,  although  a 
perfect  stranger,  he  could  not  refrain  from  expressing  his 
-admiration  to  Breckenridge.  He  wished  he  could  be  a  law 
yer,  and  went  home  and  dreamed  of  courts,  and  got  up 
mock  trials,  at  which  he  would  defend  imaginary  prisoners. 
Several  of  his  companions  at  this  period  of  his  life,  as  well 
,as  those  who  knew  him  after  he  went  to  Illinois,  declare  that 
he  was  often  heard  to  say,  not  in  joke,  but  seriously,  as  if  he 
were  deeply  impressed,  rather  than  elated  with  the  idea:  "  I 
•shall  some  day  be  President  of  the  United  States."  l 

In  March,  1826,  Lincoln  was  seventeen^|^fe  old.  At 
that  time,  from  specimens  of  his  writing  in  the  possession  of 
the  author,  he  wrote  a  clear,  neat,  legible  hand,  which  is 
instantly  and  easily  recognized  as  his  by  those  familiar 
with  Lincoln's  handwriting  when  President.  He  was 
quick  at  figures,  and  could  readily  and  accurately  solve  any 
and  all  problems  of  arithmetic  up  to,  and  including,  the 
"  rule  of  three."  2  He  studied,  at  about  this  time,  the  theory  , 
•of  surveying.  Afterwards,  and  after  his  removal  to  Illinois, 

1.  I  have  myself  heard  from  many  of  Lincoln's  old  friends,  that  he  often  said, 
while  still  an  obscure  man  :    "  Some  day  I  shall  be  President."    He  undoubtedly  had, 
for  years,  some  presentiment  of  this. 

2.  I  have  in  my  possession,  a  few  pages  from  his  manuscript  "Book  of  Exam 
ples  In  Arithmetic."    One  of  these  is  dated  March  1,  1826,  and  headed  "Discount," 
and  then  follows  in  his  careful  handwriting,  first;  "A  definition  of  Discount,"  second; 
"  Rules  for  its  computation,"  third;  "  Proofs  and  Various  Examples,"  worked  out  in 
figures  etc.;  then  "  Interest  on  money"  is  treated  in  the  same  way,  all  in  his  own 
handwriting.  I  doubt  whether  it  would  be  easy  to  find  among  scholars  of  our  common 
or  high  schools,  or  any  school  of  boys  of  the  age  of  seventeen,  a  better  written  speci 
men  of  this  sort  of  work,  or  a  better  knowledge  of  figures  than  is  indicated  by  this 
.book  of  Lincoln's,  written  at  the  age  of  seventeen. 


26  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

as  we  shall  see,  he  became  like  Washington,  a  good  practical 
surveyor.1 

In  the  spring  of  1828,  young  Lincoln,  in  the  employ  of 
the  proprietor  of  Gentryville,  and  in  company  with  Allen, 
a  son  of  Mr.  Gentry,  made  a  trip  to  New  Orleans.  They 
made  the  descent  of  the  Mississippi  in  a  flat-boat  loaded 
with  bacon  and  other  farm  produce.  This  was  his  first 
opportunity  of  seeing  the  world  outside  of  the  little  settle 
ment  in  which  he  lived.  Having  disposed  very  successfully 
of  their  cargo  and  boat,  the  young  adventurers  returned 
home  by  steamboat. 

Living  thus  on  the  extreme  frontier,  mingling  with  the 
rude,  hard-working,  simple,  honest  backwoodsmen,  while  he 
soon  became  superior  in  knowledge  to  all  around  him,  he 
was  at  the  same  time  an  expert  in  the  use  of  every  imple 
ment  of  agriculture  and  woodcraft.  As  an  axe-man  he  was 
unequalled.  c'He  grew  up  strong  in  body,  healthful  in  mind, 
with  no  bad  taabits,  no  stain  of  intemperance,  profanity  or 
vice.  He  used  neither  tobacco  nor  intoxicating  drinks,  and 
thus  living,  he  grew  to  be  six  feet  and  four  inches  high,  and 
a  giant  in  strength.  In  all  athletic  sports  he  had  no  equal. 
His  comrades  say  "  he  could  strike  the  hardest  blow  with 
axe  or  maul,  jump  higher  and  further,  run  faster  than  any 
of  his  fellows,  and  there  was  no  one,  far  or  near,  could  lay 
him  on  his  back."2 

Among  these  rough  people  he  was  always  popular.  He 
early  developed  that  wonderful  power  of  narration  and  story 
telling,  for  which  he  was  all  his  life  distinguished.  This,  and 
his  kindness  and  good-nature,  made  him  a  welcome  guest  at 
every  fireside  and  in  every  cabin.  A  well  authenticated  inci 
dent  illustrating  his  kindness  occurred  while  he  lived  near 

1.  I  have  also  in  my  possession,  the  book  from  which  he  learned  the  art  of  sur 
veying.      It  is  entitled,  "The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Surveying,  by  Robert  Gibson." 
It  was  published  by  Evert  Duyckinck,  New  York,  in  1814,  as  appears  from  the  title 
page.  Lincoln' s  name,  in  his  own  handwriting,  appears  in  several  places  and  on  blank 
leaves  of  the  book. 

2.  "  He  could  strike  with  an  axe,"  says  old  Mr.  Wood,  "  a  heavier  blow  than  any 
man."        *        *        "  He  could  sink  an  axe  deeper  than  any  of  his  fellows." 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  LIFE.  2  J 

Gentryville.  Going  home  with  a  companion,  late  on  a  cold 
night,  they  found  an  acquaintance  dead  drunk  in  the  road. 
Although  his  companion  refused  assistance,  young  Lincoln 
would  not  leave  the  drunken  man,  but,  lifting  him  in  his 
long,  stalwart  arms  to  his  shoulders,  he  carried  him  a  con 
siderable  distance  to  the  cabin  of  Dennis  Hanks,  and  there 
warmed  him  and  brought  him  to  consciousness.  The  poor 
fellow  often  afterwards  declared  :  "  Abe  Lincoln's  strength 
and  kindness  saved  my  life." 


UNIVERSITY 


CHAPTER  II. 

LIFE  AT  NEW  SALEM. 

THE  LINCOLN  FAMILY  REMOVE  TO  ILLINOIS. —  ABRAHAM'S  SECOND 
TRIP  TO  NEW  ORLEANS. —  LIFE  AT  NEW  SALEM. —  JACK  ARM 
STRONG  AND  THE  CLARY  GROVE  BOYS. —  BLACK  HAWK  WAR. — 
LINCOLN  ACQUIRES  THE  NAME  OF  "  HONEST  ABE." — POSTMASTER 
AT  SALEM. —  TRUST  FUNDS. —  STUDIES  LAW. —  A  SURVEYOR.  — 
STORY  OF  ANNE  RUTLEDGE. —  ELECTED  TO  THE  LEGISLATURE. 

IN  the  spring  of  1830,  the  Lincoln  family  removed  from 
Indiana  to  Illinois,  and  settled  near  Decatur,  in  Macon 
County.  The  family  and  their  personal  effects  were  trans 
ported  by  an  ox-team,  consisting  of  four  yoke  of  oxen, 
which  were  driven  by  the  future  President. 

Young  Lincoln  helped  to  build  a  cabin  for  his  father,  and 
to  break  up,  fence,  and  plant  a  portion  of  the  farm — splitting 
the  rails  for  the  enclosure  himself.  He  was  now  in  his 
twenty-second  year,  and  living  in  the  land  of  the  Illinit, 
which  signifies  the  land  of  full  grown  men  ;  as  an  example 
of  such  in  size,  strength,  and  capacity,  one  might  search  the 
country  through  and  not  find  his  equal.  Up  to  this  time  all 
his  earnings,  with  the  exception  of  his  own  very  frugal  sup 
port,  had  gone  to  the  maintenance  of  his  father  and  family. 
Ambitious  to  make  his  way  in  the  world,  he  now  asked  per 
mission  to  strike  out  for  himself,  and  to  seek  his  own 
fortune. 

His  father,  after  several  changes,  finally  settled  near 
"Goosenest  Prairie,"  in  Coles  County.  There  he  made  his 
home,  until  his  death,  in  1851,  at  the  age  of  seventy-three. 
He  lived  to  see  his  son  one  of  the  most  prominent  lawyers, 

28 


LIFE  AT  NEW  SALEM.  2<£ 

and  one  of  the  most  distinguished  men  of  the  state.  During 
his  life  this  son  was  continually  performing  for  him  acts  of 
kindness  and  generosity.  He  shared  in  the  prosperity,  and' 
his  pride  was  gratified  in  the  rising  fortunes  of  his  son,  who 
often  sent  money  and  other  presents  to  his  father  and  mother,, 
bought  land  for  them,  and  always  treated  them  with  the  kind 
est  consideration. 

When,  in  1830,  Lincoln  became  a  citizen  of  Illinois,  this 
great  commonwealth,  now  the  third  or  fourth  state  in  the 
Union,  and  treading  fast  upon  the  heels  of  Ohio  and  Penn 
sylvania,  was  on  the  frontier,  with  a  population  a  little  exceed 
ing  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand.  In  1860,  when  Lincoln: 
was  elected  President,  it  had  nearly  two  millions,  and  was 
rapidly  becoming  the  center  of  the  republic. 

Perhaps  he  was  fortunate  in  selecting  Illinois  as  his 
"home.  Touching  on  the  northeast  the  vast  chain  of  lakes- 
through  which  passes  to  the  Hudson  and  to  the  St.  Lawrence 
the  commerce  of  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  and  having 
that  river  along  its  entire  western  boundary,  more  than  five 
hundred  miles  in  length  ;  on  the  south  the  Ohio,  reaching 
eastward  to  the  mountains  of  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia  ; 
while  from  the  west  comes  to  its  shores  the  Missouri,  bring 
ing  for  three  thousand  miles  the  waters  of  the  springs  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  ;  this  was  the  Illinois  in  which  he  settled  ; 
then  a  wilderness,  but  destined  to  become  in  the  near  future 
the  keystone  of  the  Federal  arch.  Being  thus  situated,  the 
National  Union  was  to  this  state  an  obvious  necessity,  and 
Lincoln,  as  we  shall  see,  early  and  always  recognized  this 
fact.  He  realized  that  his  own  state,  with  its  vast  products, 
must  seek  the  markets  of  the  world  by  the  Mississippi  and 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  as  well  as  by  the  Great  Lakes  and  the 
Hudson,  but  never  through  foreign  territory.  He  early 
declared  that  no  foreign  flag  or  custom  house  must  ever  inter 
vene  between  Illinois  and  salt  water.  To  these  lakes  and 
rivers  encircling  her  with  their  mighty  arms,  is  Illinois 
indebted  for  her  prosperity.  Her  rich  soil,  her  emerald  prai 
ries,  her  streams  fringed  with  stately  forests,  have  made  her 


30  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  emigrant's  paradise.  And  this  land  so  attractive  and 
beautiful,  lacked  not  the  charm  of  early  historic  association. 
Before  Penn  had  pitched  his  tent  on  the  banks  of  the  Dela 
ware,  LaSalle  had  found  his  way  around  the  chain  of  lakes 
to  Chicago,  and  erected  Fort  St.  Louis  on  the  banks  of  the 
Illinois.  The  settlement  of  Kaskaskia  and  Cahokia  was 
contemporaneous  with  the  founding  of  Philadelphia. 

Young  Lincoln,  although  a  thoughtful,  dreamy  youth, 
would,  when  brooding  over  the  future,  have  been  almost  as 
unlikely  to  anticipate  the  marvelous  growth  of  the  state,  as 
to  foresee  his  own  still  more  wonderful  elevation.  When 
the  sturdy  blows  of  his  axe  resounded  through  the  primeval 
forests,  or  while  he  lay  on  the  grass  at  his  noonirrg,  with  his 
ear  to  the  earth,  one  would  like  to  know  whether  he  heard 

"  The  sound  of  that  advancing  multitude, 
Which  soon  should  fill  these  deserts  ;  from  the  ground 
Come  up  the  laugh  of  children,  the  soft  voice 
Of  maidens,  and  the  sweet  and  solemn  hymn 
Of  Sabbath  worshippers." 

Did  he  hear  this  ?  If  so,  he  was  soon  awakened  to  the 
stern  necessities  of  the  hour.  Day  dreams  would  bring 
neither  food  nor  clothing. 

Leaving  his  father's  cabin  and  seeking  abroad  for  employ 
ment,  he  was  engaged  by  one  Denton  Offutt  to  aid  in  taking 
a  flat-boat  loaded  with  provisions  to  New  Orleans.  In  April, 
1831,  the  boat  reached  New  Salem,  on  the  Sangamon,  and 
lodged  on  the  dam  which  had  been  erected  across  the  stream. 
When  the  owner  had  given  up  all  hope  of  being  able  to  get 
the  craft  over  the  dam,  Lincoln,  by  the  exercise  of  that  inge 
nuity  of  invention  for  which  he  was  ever  distinguished,  de 
vised  a  means  for  the  extrication  of  the  boat,  and  it  passed 
on  safely  to  the  Illinois  and  down  the  Mississippi  to  New 
Orleans. 

On  this  his  second  visit,  he  for  the  first  time  observed  slavery 
in  its  most  brutal  and  revolting  form.  New  Orleans  was  a 
slave  mart,  and  his  companion1  reports  that  Lincoln  then 

1.  John  Hanks. 


LIFE  AT  NEW  SALEM.  31 

/  witnessed  for  the  first  time  the  spectacle  of  the  chaining 
together  and  whipping  of  slaves.  He  saw  families  sold,  the 
separation  forever  of  husband  and  wife,  of  parent  and  child. 
When  we  recall  how  deeply  he  always  sympathized  with 
suffering,  brute  as  well  as  human,  and  his  strong  love  of 
justice,  we  can  realize  how  deeply  he  was  affected  by  these 
things.  His  companions  on  this  trip  to  New  Orleans  have 
attempted  to  describe  his  indignation  and  grief.  They  said, 
"  his  heart  'bled,"  *  *  *  "he  was  mad,  thoughtful, 
abstracted,  sad  and  depressed." 

Lincoln  often  declared  to  his  intimate  friends  that  he 
was  from  boyhood  superstitious.  He  said  that  the  near 
approach  of  the  important  events  in  his  life  were  indicated 
by  a  presentiment  or  a  strange  dream,  or  in  some  other 
mysterious  way  it  was  impressed  upon  him  that  something 
important  was  to  occur.  There  is  a  tradition  that  on  this 
visit  to  New  Orleans  he  and  his  companion,  John  Hanks, 
visited  an  old  fortune  teller,  a  Voudou  negress.  Tradition 
says  that  during  the  interview  she  became  very  much 
excited,  and  after  various  predictions  exclaimed:  "You  will 
be  President,  and  all  the  negroes  will  be  free."  That  the 
old  Voudou  negress  should  have  foretold  that  the  visitor 
would  be  President  is  not  at  all  incredible.  She  doubtless 
told  this  to  many  aspiring  lads,  but  the  prophecy  of  the  free 
dom  of  the  slaves  requires  confirmation.1 

On  his  return  from  New  Orleans,  in  July,  1831,  he  was 
employed  by  Off  utt  to  take  charge  of  a  country  store  at  New 

1.  The  author  wrote  to  "William  H.  Herndon,  the  partner  of  the  President,  inquir. 
ing  if  he  had  heard  of  the  tradition  referred  to  in  the  text.  In  the  reply,  dated  Octo 
ber  21, 1882,  Herndon  said:  "  It  seems  to  me  just  now  that  I  once  hoard  of  the  fortune- 
telling  story,  but  can  not  state  when  I  heard  it,  nor  from  whom  I  got  it.  It  seems 
that  John  Hanks,  who  was  with  Lincoln  at  New  Orleans  in  1831,  told  me  the  story. 
-  At  that  time  and  place  Lincoln  was  made  an  anti-slavery  man.  He  saw  a  slave,  a 
beautiful  mulatto  girl,  sold  at  auction.  She  was  felt  over,  pinched,  trotted  around  to 
show  to  bidders  that  said  article  was  sound,  etc.  Lincoln  walked  away  from  the  sad, 
inhuman  scene  with  a  deep  feeling  of  unsmotherable  hate.  He  said  to  John  Hanks 
this:  'By  God!  if  I  ever  get  a  chance  to  hit  that  Institution,  I'll  hit  it  hard,  John.' 
He  got  his  chance,  and  did  hit  it  hard.  John  Hanks,  who  was  two  or  three  times 
examined  by  me,  told  me  the  above  facts  about  the  negro  girl  and  Lincoln's  declara 
tion.  There  Is  no  doubt  about  this.  As  to  the  fortune-telling  story,  I  do  not  affirm 
anything  or  deny  anything." 


32  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Salem,  a  small  village  near  the  Sangamon  River.  In  Aug 
ust  of  the  same  year,  he  acted  as  clerk  of  the  election.  He 
remained  as  a  salesman  with  Offutt  until  the  spring  of  1832. 
He  was  a  great  favorite,  both  with  his  employer  and  his  cus 
tomers.  Anecdotes  of  his  scrupulous  honesty  and  his 
bravery  in  protecting  women  from  annoyance  by  bullies,  are 
so  numerous  that  we  have  not  space  to  relate  them.  Offutt 
often  declared  that  his  clerk,  or  salesman,  knew  more  than 
any  man  in  the  United  States,  and  that  he  could  outrun, 
whip  or  throw  any  man  in  the  county.  These  boasts  came 
to  the  ears  of  "  The  Clary  Grove  Boys,"  a  set  of  rude,  roy- 
stering,  good-natured  fellows,  who  lived  in  and  around 
"  Clary's  Grove,"  a  settlement  near  New  Salem.  Their 
leader  was  Jack  Armstrong,  a  great,  square-built  fellow, 
strong  as  an  ox,  and  who  was  believed  by  his  partisans  to  be 
able  to  whip  any  man  on  the  Sangamon  River.  The  issue 
was  thus  made  between  Lincoln  and  Armstrong  as  to  which 
was  the  better  man,  and  although  Lincoln  tried  to  avoid  such 
contests,  nothing  but  an  actual  trial  could  settle  the  question 
among  their  partisans.  And  so  they  met  and  wrestled  for 
some  time,  without  any  decided  advantage  on  either  side. 
Finally  Jack  resorted  to  some  foul  play  which  roused  Lin 
coln's  indignation.  Putting  forth  his  whole  strength,  he 
seized  the  great  bully  by  the  throat,  and  holding  him  at 
arm's  length,  shook  him  like  a  boy.  The  "Clary  Grove  Boys," 
who  made  up  most  of  the  crowd  of  the  lookers-on,  were 
ready  to  pitch  in,  on  behalf  of  their  champion,  and  a  general 
onslaught  upon  Lincoln  was  threatened.  Lincoln  backed 
up  against  Offutt's  store,  and  was  ready,  calmly  awaiting  the 
attack  of  the  whole  crowd.  But  his  cool  courage  touched 
the  manhood  of  Jack  Armstrong.  He  stepped  forward, 
seized  Lincoln's  hand  and  shook  it  heartily  as  he  declared; 
"  Boys!  Abe  Lincoln  is  the  best  fellow  that  ever  broke  into- 
this  settlement.  He  shall  be  one  of  us."  From  that  time 
on,  Jack  Armstrong  was  Lincoln's  man  and  his  most  willing 
thrall.  His  hand,  his  table,  his  purse,  his  vote,  and  that  of 
the  "Clary  Grove  Boys,"  belonged  to  Lincoln.  Lincoln's 


LIFE  AT  NEW  SALEM. 


33 


popularity  with  them  was  unbounded,  and  his  rule  was  just. 
He  would  have  fair  play,  and  he  repressed  the  violence  and 
brutality  of  these  rough  fellows  to  an  extent  which  would 
have  been  impossible  to  another  man.  He  could  stop  a 
fight  and  quell  a  riot  among  these  rude  neighbors  when  all 
others  failed. 

What  made  Lincoln  so  popular  with  the  "  Clary  Grove 
Boys  "  ?  He  did  not  use  tobacco,  nor  drink,  nor  gamble, 
nor  fight  except  when  he  was  obliged  to,  and  yet  the  rough 
fellows  almost  worshipped  him.  Why  ?  He  was  brave,  he 
could  fight,  and  physically  he  was  their  superior,  but  he 
indulged  in  none  of  their  vices,  nor  did  he  flatter  them-.. 
Although  he  was  their  companion,  he  made  them  respect 
him.  Hejreated  them  like  men,  and  always  brought  out  the 
best  there  was  in  them.  They  felt  his  moral  and  intellectual 
superiority,  but  they  also  felt  that  he  did  not  despise  them,, 
and  that  he  sympathized  with  them.  In  a  certain  sense  he- 
was  one  of  them,  but  he  was  their  ideal,  their  hero. 

A  fellow-clerk  in  Offutt's  store,  a  Mr.  Green,  declares 
that  Lincoln's  talk  showed  that  he  was,  even  then,  dreaming 
of  "  a  great  life,  and  a  great  destiny."  He,  at  this  timey, 
although  extremely  poor,  took,  and  read,  the  Louisville  Jour 
nal,  edited  by  George  D.  Prentice,  a  man  who  for  wit  and 
repartee  has,  perhaps,  never  had  his  superior  among  the  edi 
tors  of  the  United  States. 

In  the  spring  of  1832,  Offutt  having  failed,  Lincoln  was 
again  out  of  employment.  During  the  spring  and  summer, 
great  excitement  and  alarm  prevailed  in  Northern  Illinois, 
on  account  of  the  Black  Hawk  war.  There  is  nowhere  a 
more  beautiful,  fertile,  and  picturesque  valley,  than  the  valley 
of  Rock  River,  in  Northern  Illinois.  It  had  been  the  hunt 
ing-ground  and  home  of  the  Sac  tribe  of  Indians  of  which 
Black  Hawk  was  the  chief.  The  tribe  for  several  years  had 
been  living  on  their  reservation,  west  of  the  Mississippi,  but 
this  brave  warrior  and  skillful  leader,  uniting  several  tribes 
under  his  leadership,  determined  to  return  to  the  old  home, 
and  re-occupy  the  old  hunting-grounds.  Crossing  the  Miss- 
3 


34  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

issippi  with  his  warriors,  several  white  families  were  mur 
dered,  and  the  whole  state  was  alarmed.  John  Reynolds, 
Governor  of  Illinois,  issued  his  proclamation,  calling  for  vol 
unteers  to  help  the  Federal  troops  drive  the  Indians  out  of 
the  state.  Lincoln  promptly  volunteered,  and  his  friends, 
the  "  Clary  Grove  Boys,"  soon  made  up  a  company. 

The  volunteers  gathered  at  Rushville,  in  Schuyler  Coun 
ty, — at  which  place  they  were  to  be  organized — and  elected 
officers.  Lincoln  was  a  candidate  for  the  place  of  captain, 
and  in  opposition  to  him  was  one  William  Kirkpatrick.  The 
mode  of  election  was  novel.  By  agreement,  each  candidate 
walked  off  to  some  distance,  and  took  position  by  himself ; 
the  men  were  then  to  form,  and  those  who  voted  for  Lin 
coln  were  to  stand  in  a  line  with  him,  and  those  who  voted 
for  Kirkpatrick  to  range  on  a  line  with  their  candidate. 
When  the  lines  were  formed,  Lincoln's  was  three  times  as 
long  as  that  of  Kirkpatrick,  and  so  Lincoln  was  declared 
elected.  Speaking  of  this  when  President,  he  said  that  he 
was  more  gratified  with  this,  his  first  success,  than  with  any 
other  election  of  his  life.  Neither  Lincoln  nor  his  company 
was  in  any  engagement  during  the  campaign,  but  there  was 
plenty  of  hardship  and  fatigue,  and  some  incidents  occurred 
to  illustrate  his  courage  and  power  over  men.  Perhaps  the 
most  notable  event  in  the  campaign,  so  far  as  Captain  Lin 
coln  was  concerned,  was  his  determined  and  successful  effort 
to  save  the  life  of  an  Indian  from  the  infuriated  soldiers. 

One  day  there  came  into  camp,  a  poor,  old,  hungry 
Indian.  He  had  in  his  possession,  General  Cass's  "  safe-con 
duct,"  and  certificate  of  friendship  for  the  whites.  But  this 
he  did  not  at  first  show,  and  the  soldiers,  suspecting  him  to 
be  a  spy,  and  exasperated  by  the  late  Indian  barbarities,  with 
the  recent  horrible  murder  by  the  Indians  of  some  women 
and  children  still  fresh  in  their  minds,  were  about  to  kill  him. 
Many  of  these  soldiers  were  Kentuckians  with  the  hereditary 
Indian  hatred,  and  some,  like  their  captain,  could  recall  the 
murder  by  the  red  men,  of  some  ancestor,  or  other 
member  of  their  own  families.  In  a  phrensy  of  excitement 


LIFE  AT  NEW  SALEM.  35 

and  blind  rage,  they  believed,  or  affected  to  believe,  that  the 
"  safe-conduct "  of  the  old  Indian,  which  was  now  produced, 
was  a  forgery,  and  they  were  approaching  the  old  savage, 
with  muskets  cocked,  to  dispatch  him,  when  Lincoln  rushed 
forward,  knocked  up  their  weapons,  and  standing  in  front  of 
the  victim,  in  a  determined  voice  ordered  them  not  to  fire, 
declaring  that  the  Indian  should  not  be  killed.  The  mob, 
their  passions  fully  roused,  were  not  so  easily  to  be 
restrained.  Lincoln  stood  for  a  moment  between  the 
Indian  and  a  dozen  muskets,  and,  for  a  few  seconds,  it 
seemed  doubtful  whether  both  would  not  be  shot  down. 
After  a  pause,  the  militia  reluctantly,  and  like  bull-dogs 
leaving  their  prey,  lowered  their  weapons  and  sullenly  turned 
away.  Bill  Green, an  old  comrade,  said:  "I  never  in  all  my 
life  saw  Lincoln  so  roused  before." 

The  time  for  which  the  company  had  volunteered  having 
expired,  the  men  were  discharged.  But  Black  Hawk  and 
his  warriors  being  still  east  of  the  Mississippi,  Governor  Rey 
nolds  issued  a  second  call  for  troops,  and  Lincoln  at  once 
responded  by  volunteering  again,  and  this  time  he  served  as 
a  private  in  a  company  of  which  Elijah  lies,  of  Springfield, 
was  elected  captain.  This  company  did  service  as  a  company 
of  mounted  rangers,  and  in  it  Lincoln  served  until  the  close 
of  the  war.  Here  he  met  as  a  fellow  soldier,  John  T.  Stuart, 
afterwards  member  of  Congress,  and  others,  who  became 
prominent  citizens  of  Illinois.1 

In  their  camp  on  the  banks  of  Rock  River,  near  where 
the  city  of  Dixon  is  now  situated,  there  met  at  this  time, 

1.  In  a  letter  to  the  author,  dated  Springfield,  Ills.,  December  7,  1868,  Captain  lies 
says:  *  *  *  "I  have  yours  asking  whether  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  member  of  my  com 
pany  in  the  Black  Hawk  war,  etc.  In  reply,  I  answer  he  was  a  member  of  my 
company  during  a  portion  of  the  time,  and  received  an  honorable  discharge.  The  first 
call  for  volunteers,  Mr.  Lincoln  volunteered,  and  was  elected  captain.  The  term  of 
Governor  Reynolds'  first  call  being  about  to  expire,  he  made  a  second  call  and  the  first 
was  then  disbanded.  *  *  *  I  was  elected  a  captain  of  one  of  the  companies.  I 
liad  as  members  of  my  company,  General  James  D.  Henry,  John  T.  Stuart,  and 
A.  Lincoln,  and  we  were  mustered  into  the  service  on  the  29th  of  May,  1832,  by 
Lieutenant  Robert  Anderson,  Assistant  Inspector  General.  We  reported  to  Colonel 
Zachary  Taylor,  at  Dixon's  Ferry  (on  Rock  River).  Mr.  Lincoln  remained  with  the 
company  to  the  close  of  the  war." 


36  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Lieutenant  Colonel  Zachary  Taylor,  Lieutenant  Jefferson 
Davis,  Lieutenant  Robert  Anderson,  and  private  Abraham 
Lincoln  of  Captain  Iles's  company  of  Illinois  Mounted 
Rangers. ' 

Lincoln  and  Anderson  did  not  meet  again  until  sometime 
in  1 86 1,  and  after  Major  Anderson  had  evacuated  Fort 
Sumter.  He  then  visited  Washington,  and  called  at  the 
White  House  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  President.  After 
having  expressed  his  thanks  to  Anderson  for  his  conduct  in 
South  Carolina,  Mr.  Lincoln  said:  "  Major,  do  you  remem 
ber  of  ever  meeting  me  before?"  "No,  Mr.  President,  I 
have  no  recollection  of  ever  having  had  the  pleasure  before." 
"  My  memory  is  better  than  yours,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln.  "  You 
mustered  me  into  the  service  of  the  United  States,  in  1832, 
at  Dixon's  Ferry,  in  the  Black  Hawk  war."  2 

Father  Dixon,  who,  as  below  stated,  was  attached  to  this 
company  of  mounted  rangers  as  guide,  says  that  in  their 
marches,  when  approaching  a  grove  or  depression  in  which 
an  Indian  ambush  might  be  concealed,  and  when  scouts 
were  sent  forward  to  examine  the  cover,  Lincoln  was  often 
selected  for  that  duty,  and  he  adds  that  while  many,  as  they 
approached  the  place  of  suspected  ambush,  found  an  excuse  , 
for  dismounting  to  adjust  girths  or  saddles,  Lincoln's  saddle 
was  always  in  order.  He  also  states  that  at  evening,  when 
off  duty,  Lincoln  was  generally  found  sitting  on  the  grass, 
with  a  group  of  soldiers  eagerly  listening  to  the  stories  of 

1.  John  Dixon,  who  then  kept  the  ferry  across  Bock  Elver,  was  a  guide  attached 
to  the  troops.    The  Indians  gave  him  the  name  of  Na-chu-sa,  or  "  White-Head."    He 
told  the  author  of  the  curious  meeting  mentioned  in  the  text. 

2.  The  author  happened  to  be  present  at  this  interview.    Colonel  Robert  Ander- 
Bon,  in  a  manuscript  sketch  of  the  Black  Hawk  war,  now  before  me,  dated  May  10, 
1870,  and  addressed  to  the  Hon.  E.  B.  Washburne,  to  whom  the  manuscript  belongs, 
says  :     kl  I  also  mustered  Abraham  Lincoln  twice  into  the  service,  and  once  out.    He 
was  a  member  of  two  of  the  Independent  Companies.    *    *    *     I  mustered  him  into 
the  service  at  the  mouth  of  Fox  River  (Ottawa),  May  29,  1832,  in  Captain  Elijah  Iles's 
company.  I  have  no  recollection  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  but  when  President  he  reminded  me 
of  it.    *    *    *    William  S.  Hamilton,  son  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  joined  us  with  a 
small  party  of  friendly  Indians.     *     *     *     The  Rock  River  country  was  beautiful 
beyond  description,  surpassing  any  thing  I]  ever  saw  in  our  country,  Mexico,  or  la 
Europe." 


LIFE  AT  NEW  SALEM.  37 

which  his  supply  seemed  inexhaustible,  and  that  he  invariably 
declined  the  whiskey  which  his  comrades,  grateful  for  the 
amusement  he  afforded,  pressed  upon  him. 

When  a  member  of  Congress,  Mr.  Lincoln  made  a  very 
amusing  campaign  speech,  in  which,  alluding  to  the  custom 
of  exaggerating  the  military  service  of  candidates,  and 
ridiculing  the  extravagant  claims  to  heroism  set  up  for 
General  Lewis  Cass,  then  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency 
against  General  Zachary  Taylor,  he  referred  with  great  good 
humor  to  his  own  services  in  the  Black  Hawk  war  in  the 
following  terms: 

"  By  the  way,  Mr.  Speaker,  did  you  know  I  am  a  military  hero? 
Yes,  sir;  in  the  days  of  the  Black  Hawk  war  I  fought,  bled,  and  came 
away.  Speaking  of  General  Cass's  career  reminds  me  of  my  own.  I 
was  not  at  Stillman's  defeat,  but  I  was  about  as  near  it  as  Cass  was  to 
Hull's  surrender;  and,  like  him,  I  saw  the  place  very  soon  afterwards.  It 
is  quite  certain  I  did  not  break  my  sword,  for  I  had  none  to  break;  but  I 
bent  my  musket  pretty  badly  on  one  occasion.  If  Cass  broke  his  sword, 
the  idea  is  he  broke  it  in  desperation.  I  bent  my  musket  by 
accident.  If  General  Cass  went  in  advance  of  me  in  picking  whortle 
berries,  I  guess  I  surpassed  him  in  charges  upon  the  wild  onions.  If 
he  saw  any  live  fighting  Indians,  it  was  more  than  I  did  ;  but  I  had  a 
good  many  bloody  struggles  with  the  musquitoes,  and,  although  I  never 
fainted  from  loss  of  blood,  I  can  truly  say  I  was  often  very  hungry. 
Mr.  Speaker,  if  I  should  ever  conclude  to  doff  whatever  our  democratic 
friends  may  suppose  there  is  of  black-cockade  federalism  about  me,  and 
thereupon  they  shall  take  me  up  as  their  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  I 
protest  they  shall  not  make  fun  of  me,  as  they  have  of  General  Cass,  by 
attempting  to  write  me  into  a  military  hero." 

The  volunteers  returned  from  the  Black  Hawk  war  a 
short  time  before  the  state  election.  In  this  expedition 
Lincoln  had  rendered  himself  so  popular  that  his  comrades 
and  others  insisted  upon  his  being  a  candidate  for  the 
Legislature.  Although  not  elected,  he  received  the  unani 
mous  vote  of  New  Salem.  For  member  of  Congress  both 
candidates  together  received  206  votes,  while  Lincoln  alone 
received  207  votes  for  the  Legislature. 

f     Left  again  without  employment,  he  was  induced,  in  asso 
ciation  with  one  Berry  as  partner,  to  become  the  purchaser 


38  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  a  small  store  at  New  Salem.  Berry  turned  out  to  be  a 
dissipated,  worthless  fellow,  and  within  a  few  months  the 
enterprise  failed,  leaving  Lincoln  responsible  for  the  purchase 
money.  It  was  six  years  before  he  was  able  entirely  to  pay 
off  the  liabilities  thus  incurred. 

It  was  while  he  was  salesman  for  Offutt,  and  proprietor 
of  this  little  store,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  acquired  the  sobriquet 
of  "  Honest  Abe."  Of  many  incidents  illustrating  his  integ 
rity  one  or  two  may  be  mentioned.  One  evening  he  found 
his  cash  overrun  a  little,  and  he  discovered  that  in  making 
change  for  his  last  customer,  an  old  woman  who  had  come 
in  a  little  before  sundown,  he  had  made  a  mistake,  not  having 
given  her  quite  enough.  Although  the  amount  was  small,  a 
few  cents  only,  he  took  the  money,  immediately  walked  to 
her  house,  and  corrected  the  error.  At  another  time,  on  his 
arrival  at  the  store  in  the  morning,  he  found  on  the  scales  a 
weight  which  he  remembered  having  used  just  before  closing, 
but  which  was  not  the  one  he  had  intended  to  use.  He  had 
sold  a  parcel  of  tea,  and  in  the  hurry  had  placed  the  wrong 
weight  on  the  scales,  so  that  the  purchaser  had  a  few  ounces 
less  of  tea  than  had  been  paid  for.  He  immediately  sent 
the  quantity  required  to  make  up  the  deficiency.  These 
and  many  similar  incidents  are  told,  exhibiting  his  scrupu 
lous  honesty  in  the  most  trifling  matters,  and  for  these  the 
people  gave  him  the  name  which  clung  to  him  through  life. 

In  the  course  of  the  great  debate  between  Lincoln  and 
Douglas,  in  1858,  at  their  joint  discussion  at  Ottawa,  Doug 
las  alluded  to  Lincoln's  store-keeping.  He  said  : 

"  I  have  known  him  for  nearly  twenty-four  years.  There  were  many 
points  of  sympathy  between  us.  When  we  first  got  acquainted,  I  was  a 
school-teacher  at  Winchester,  and  he  a  flourishing  grocery-keeper  at 
Salem."  *  *  *  "  He  soon  got  into  the  Legislature.  I  met  him 
then,  and  had  a  sympathy  with  him  because  of  the  up-hill  struggle  we 
both  had  in  life.  "l 

On  the  yth  of  May,  1833,  he  was  appointed  postmaster 
at  New  Salem.  This  was  a  small  office  with  a  weekly  mail. 

1.  Lincoln  and  Douglas  Debates,  p.  69. 


LIFE  AT  NEW  SALEM. 


39 


He  kept  the  office  until  the  station  was  discontinued  and  the 
place  of  delivery  changed  to  Petersburg.  The  balance  in 
his  hands  at  the  time  of  the  discontinuance  of  the  office  was 
sixteen  or  eighteen  dollars.  This  small  sum  was  perhaps 
overlooked  by  the  post-office  department  and  was  not  called 
for  until  some  years  after  Lincoln  had  removed  to  Spring 
field.  During  these  years  he  had  been  in  debt  and  very 
poor.  So  poor,  indeed,  that  he  had  often  been  compelled 
to  borrow  money  of  his  friends  to  pay  for  the  very  necessa 
ries  of  life.  One  day  an  agent  of  the  post-office  called  on 
Dr.  Henry,  with  whom  Lincoln  at  that  time  kept  his  law 
office.  Knowing  Mr.  Lincoln's  poverty,  and  how  often  he 
had  been  pressed  for  money,  Henry  says:1  "I  did  not 
believe  he  had  the  money  on  hand  to  meet  the  draft,  and  I 
was  about  to  call  him  aside  and  loan  him  the  money,  when 
he  asked  the  agent  to  be  seated  a  moment,  while  he  went 
over  to  his  trunk  at  his  boarding-house,  and  returned  with 
an  old  blue  sock  with  a  quantity  of  silver  and  copper  coin 
tied  up  in  it.  Untying  the  sock,  he  poured  the  contents  on 
the  table  and  proceeded  to  count  the  coin,  which  consisted 
of  such  silver  and  copper  pieces  as  the  country-people 
were  then  in  the  habit  of  using  in  paying  postage.  On 
counting  it  up  there  was  found  the  exact  amount,  to  a  cent, 
of  the  draft,  and  in  the  identical  coin  which  had  been 
received.  He  never  used,  under  any  circumstances,  trust 
funds."  The  anecdote  will  recall  an  incident  narrated  by  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  in  the  famous  "Chronicles  of  the  Canongate."4 
On  the  return  of  Craftengry,  who  had  been  absent  twenty 
years,  honest  "  Shanet,"  in  triumph,  hands  him  the  fifteen 
shillings,  she  has  kept  sacred  for  him,  saying:  "  Here  they  are, 
and  Shanet  has  had  siller,  and  Shanet  has  wanted  siller,  mony  a 
time  since  that.  The  gauger  has  come,  and  the  factor  has 
come,  and  the  butcher,  and  the  baker.  Cot  bless  us — just 
like  to  tear  poor  ould  Shanet  to  pieces,  but  she  took  good 

1.  Dr.  Henry  gave  me  the  details  of  this  incident  at  Washington  when  Mr.  L.  was 
President. 

2.  "  Waverley  Novels,"  Black's  Ed.,  v.  19,  p.  384. 


4<D  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

care  of  Mr.  Craftengry's  fifteen  shillings."  So  with  Mr. 
Lincoln,  the  tailor  came,  the  boarding-house  keeper  came, 
and  the  law  bookseller  came,  but  Lincoln  took  good  care  of 
/Uncle  Sam's  post-office  money. 

In  1832,  Lincoln  bought  at  auction,  in  Springfield,  a  sec 
ond  hand  copy  of  Blackstone's  Commentaries,  and  began  to 
study  law.  A  few  weeks  hard  study,  and  he  had  mastered 
this  elementary  work,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  a  good 
lawyer's  education  ;  he  then  resolved  to  make  the  law  his 
profession.  But  he  had  neither  books,  nor  any  means  of 
buying  them.  In  this  dilemma  he  sought  the  advice  of  his 
old  friend,  comrade  and  fellow  soldier  in  the  Black  Hawk 
war,  John  T.  Stuart.  Mr.  Stuart  was  a  prosperous  and  suc 
cessful  lawyer  at  Springfield,  and  had,  for  a  new  country,  a 
respectable  law  library.  Stuart  encouraged  him  to  go  on, 
and  generously  offered  to  loan  to  him  all  the  law  books  he 
needed.  And  now,  with  an  application  which  showed  that 
he  had  at  last  found  a  congenial  pursuit,  he  devoted  himself 
to  study. 

He  still  lived  at  New  Salem,  some  fourteen  miles  from 
Springfield  ;  he  walked  into  town  to  exchange  one  book  for 
another,  and,  it  is  said,  he  would  often  master  thirty  or  forty 
pages  of  the  new  book  on  his  way  home.  He  was  often 
seen  seated  against  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  or  lying  on  the  grass 
under  its  shade,  poring  over  his  books,  changing  his  position 
as  the  sun  advanced,  so  as  to  keep  in  the  shadow.  So 
intense  was  his  application,  and  so  absorbed  was  he  in  his 
study,  that  he  would  pass  his  best  friends  without  observing 
them,  and  some  people  said  that  Lincoln  was  going  crazy 
with  hard  study.  He  very  soon  began  to  make  a  practical 
application  of  his  knowledge.  He  bought  an  old  form-book, 
and  began  to  draw  up  contracts,  deeds,  leases,  mortgages, 
and  all  sorts  of  legal  instruments  for  his  neighbors.  He  also 
began  to  exercise  his  forensic  ability  in  trying  small  cases 
before  justices  of  the  peace  and  juries,  and  he  soon  acquired 
a  local  reputation  as  a  speaker,  which  gave  him  considerable 
practice. 


LIFE  AT  NEW  SALEM.  4! 

But  he  was  able  in  this  way  to  earn  scarcely  money 
•enough  for  his  maintenance.  To  add  to  his  means,  he  again 
took  up  the  study  of  surveying,  and  soon  became,  like  Wash 
ington,  a  skillful  and  accurate  surveyor.  John  Calhoun,  an 
intelligent  and  courteous  gentleman,  was  at  that  time  sur 
veyor  of  the  County  of  Sangamon.  He  became  interested 
in  Lincoln,  and  appointed  him  as  his  deputy.  His  work  was 
so  accurate,  and  the  settlers  had  such  confidence  in  him,  that 
he  was  much  sought  after  to  survey,  fix  and  mark  the  boun 
daries  of  farms,  and  to  plot  and  lay  off  new  towns  and  vil 
lages.  Among  others,  he  plotted  and  laid  off  the  town  of 
Petersburg.  His  accuracy  must  have  been  attained  with 
some  difficulty,  for  the  old  settlers  who  survive  say  that 
when  he  began  to  survey  his  chain  was  a  grape-vine.  He 
did  not  speculate  in  the  land  he  surveyed.  Had  he  done 
so,  the  rapid  advance  in  the  value  of  real  estate  would  have 
made  it  easy  for  him  to  make  good  investments.  But  he 
was  not  in  the  least  like  one  of  his  appointees  when  Presi 
dent — a  surveyor-general  of  a  western  territory,  who  bought 
up  much  of  the  best  land,  and  to  whom  the  President  said  : 
"  I  am  told,  sir,  you  are  monarch  of  all  you  survey." 

By  surveying,  and  his  small  law  practice,  he  earned  his 
very  frugal  livelihood,  and  made  some  progress  in  reducing 
the  debts  incurred  by  the  purchase  of  the  store.  But,  in 
1834,  one  of  the  notes  which  he  had  given  for  it  was  put  in 
judgment,  and  the  impatient  creditor  seized  his  horse,  saddle 
and  bridle,  and  surveying  instruments,  and  sold  them  under 
execution.  Lincoln  was,  it  is  said,  somewhat  discouraged, 
but  his  friends  bid  in  and  restored  to  him  the  property.  One 
of  them,  who  had  often  befriended  him,  and  whose  name  was 
Bolin  Greene,  was  especially  kind  and  generous.  He  bid  in 
and  restored  the  horse,  saddle,  and  bridle,  and  waited  Lin 
coln's  convenience  for  payment.  Lincoln  was  a  very  grate 
ful  and  warm-hearted  man,  and  Bolin  Greene's  friendship 
and  repeated  acts  of  kindness  touched  him.  Bolin  Greene 
•died  a  short  time  thereafter,  and  Lincoln  tried  to  deliver  a 
funeral  oration  over  his  remains.  "  When  he  rose  to  speak 


42  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

his  voice  was  choked  with  deep  emotion."1  The  tears  ran 
down  his  cheeks,  and  he  was  so  overcome  that  he  could  not 
go  on.  His  tears  were  more  eloquent  than  any  words  he 
could  have  spoken. 

Lincoln  had  not  grown  up  to  manhood  without  the  usual 
experiences  of  the  tender  passion.  Like  most  young  men, 
he  had  his  youthful  fancies  ;  perhaps  on  one  occasion  some 
thing  which  approached  a  "  grand  passion."  There  is  more 
than  a  mere  tradition,  that,  while  residing  at  New  Salem,  he 
became  very  much  attached  to  a  prairie  beauty,  with  the 
sweet  and  romantic  name  of  Anne  Rutledge.  Irving,  in  his 
"  Life  of  Washington,"  says:  "  before  he  was  fifteen  years 
old,  he  had  conceived  a  passion  for  some  unknown  beauty, 
so  serious  as  to  disturb  his  otherwise  well  regulated  mindr 
and  to  make  him  really  unhappy."  Lincoln  was  less  pre 
cocious  than  Washington,  or  perhaps  his  heart  was  better 
shielded  by  the  hard  labor  to  which  he  was  subjected.  Some 
thing  sensational  and  dramatic  has,  been  printed  in  regard  to 
this  attachment.  Gossip  and  imagination  have  represented 
this  early  romance  as  casting  a  shadow  over  his  whole  after 
life,  and  as  having  produced  something  bordering  upon  insan 
ity.  The  picture  has  been  somewhat  too  highly  colored,  and 
the  story  made  rather  too  tragic. 

James  Rutledge,  one  of  the  founders  of  New  Salem,  and 
who  is  said  to  have  been  of  the  distinguished  South  Caro 
lina  family  of  that  name,  one  of  whom  was  a  signer  of  the 
"  Declaration  of  Independence,"  was  a  warm  personal  friend 
of  Lincoln.  He  was  the  father  of  a  large  family,  and  among 
the  daughters  was  Anne,  born  January  yth,  1813.  She  is 
described  as  being  a  blonde,  with  golden  hair,  lips  as  red  as 
the  cherry,  a  cheek  like  the  wild  rose,  with  blue  eyes,  as 
sweet  and  gentle  in  manners  and  temper  as  attractive  in  per 
son.  Lincoln  was  among  her  suitors,  and  they  were  engaged 
to  be  married  as  soon  as  he  should  have  finished  his  legal 
studies,  and  he  should  be  admitted  to  the  bar  of  the  Supreme 
Court.  But  in  August,  1835,  she  died.  Her  beauty  and 

1.  W.  H.  Herndon. 


LIFE  AT  NEW  SALEM.  43 

attractions,  and  her  early  death,  made  a  very  deep  impres 
sion  upon  him.  He  idealized  her  memory,  and  in  his  recoU 
lections  of  her,  there  was  a  poetry  of  sentiment,  which 
might  possibly  have  been  lessened  had  she  lived,  by  the  pro 
saic  realities  of  life. 

With  all  his  love  of  fun  and  frolic,  with  all  his  wit  and 
humor,  with  all  his  laughter  and  anecdotes,  Lincoln,  from 
his  youth,  was  a  person  of  deep  feeling,  and  there  was 
always  mingled  with  his  mirth,  sadness  and  melancholy.  He 
always  associated  with  the  memory  of  Anne  Rutledge  the 
plaintive  poem  which  in  his  hours  of  melancholy  he  so  often 
repeated,  and  whose  familiar  first  stanzas  are  as  follows: 

"  Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud  ?•- 
Like  a  swift  fleeting  meteor,  a  fast  flying  cloud,  - 
A  flash  of  the  lightning,  a  break  of  the  wave,. 
He  passeth  from  life  to  his  rest  in  the  grave. - 

' '  The  leaves  of  the  oak  and  the  willow  shall  fade> 
Be  scattered  around,  and  together  be  laid,- 
And  the  young  and  the  old,  and  the  low  and  the  high  - 
Shall  moulder  to  dust  and  together  shall  lie."-1 

Lincoln  loved  at  twilight,  or  when  in  the  country,  or  in 
solitude,  or  when  with  some  confidential  friend,  to  repeat 
this  poem.  I  think  he  exaggerated  its  merits,  and  I  attribute 
his  great  love  of  the  poem  to  its  association  with  Anne 
Rutledge.  Several  years  passed  after  the  sad  death  of  Miss 
Rutledge  before  he  married.  It  is  not  impossible  that  his 
devotion  to  her  memory  may  have  been,  in  part,  the  cause 
of  so  long  a  delay. 

An  old  friend2  of  Lincoln  long  years  afterwards,  on  one 
occasion  when  they  were  talking  of  old  times  at  New  Salem, 
of  the  Greenes  and  Armstrongs  and  Rutledges,  ventured  to 
ask  him  about  his  early  attachment,  to  which  he  replied:  "  I 
loved  her  dearly.  She  was  a  handsome  girl,  and  would 
have  made  a  good,  loving  wife.  She  was  natural,  and  quite 
intellectual,  though  not  highly  educated." 

1.  See  Carpenter's  "  Six  Months  in  the  White  House." 

2.  Isaac  Cogswell. 


44  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

In  1834,  Lincoln  was  again  a  candidate  for  the  Legisla 
ture,  and  was  now  elected,  receiving  a  greater  number  of 
votes  than  any  other  man  on  either  ticket.  This  is  the  more 
remarkable  as  among  his  colleagues  was  his  old  friend  and 
comrade,  John  T.  Stuart.  Thus,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five, 
this  plain,  rough,  sturdy  son  of  a  pioneer  found  himself  a 
member  of  the  Illinois  Legislature,  and  the  most  popular 
man  in  Sangamon  County. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   ILLINOIS   LEGISLATURE. 

LINCOLN  AT  TWENTY-FIVE. — At  VANDALIA. — RE-ELECTED  IN  1836. — 
REPLIES  TO  FORQUER. — To  DR.  EARLY. — To  COL.  TAYLOR. — 
STATE  CAPITAL  REMOVED  FROM  VANDALIA  TO  SPRINGFIELD. — 
ANTI-SLAVERY  PROTEST. — RE-ELECTED  IN  1838. — REMOVES  TO- 
SPRINGFIELD. — RE-ELECTED  IN  1840. — PARTNERSHIP  WITH  JOHN 
T.  STUART. — RIDING  THE  CIRCUIT. 

UP  to  this  time  Lincoln's  work  had  been  up-hill,  and  his 
humble  life  had  been  a  constant  struggle  with  difficulties. 
By  heroic  endeavor,  by  persevering  effort,  by  fortitude  and 
constancy,  and  a  resolute  will,  he  had  overcome  these 
difficulties,  and  had  at  length  found  his  true  vocation.  He 
was  now  to  enter  upon  a  new  career.  What  he  was  he  had 
made  himself.  What  he  knew  he  owed  to  his  own  exertions. 
Let  us  pause  for  a  moment,  and  see  what  he  was  and  what 
were  his  acquirements. 

We  find  him  now,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  a  vigorous, 
well-developed  man,  with  a  constitution  inured  to  toil  and 
hardened  by  exposure — a  sound  body  upon  which  he  could 
rely  for  almost  any  amount  of  physical  or  mental  labor,  and 
great  powers  of  endurance.  He  knew  the  Bible  by  heart. 
There  was  not  a  clergyman  to  be  found  so  familiar  with  it 
as  he.  Scarcely  a  speech  or  paper  prepared  by  him,  from 
this  time  to  his  death,  but  contains  apt  allusions  and  striking 
illustrations  from  the  sacred  book.  He  could  repeat  nearly 
all  the  poems  of  Burns,  and  was  familiar  with  Shakespeare, 
In  arithmetic,  surveying,  and  the  rudiments  of  other  branches 

45 


46  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  mathematics,  he  was  perfectly  at  home.  He  had  mastered 
Blackstone,  Kent,  and  the  elementary  law  books.  He  had 
considerable  knowledge  of  physics  and  mechanics.  He 
showed  how  much  better  it  is  to  know  thoroughly  a  few 
books,  than  to  know  many  superficially.  Such  had  been  his 
education.  He  was  manly,  gentle,  just,  truthful,  and  honest. 
In  conduct,  kind  and  generous;  so  modest,  so  considerate  of 
others,  so  unselfish,  that  every  one  liked  him  and  wished  him 
success.  True,  he  was  homely,  awkward,  diffident;  but  he 
was,  in  fact,  strictly  a  gentleman — "  in  substance,  at  least,  if 
not  in  outside  polish." l 

From  the  books  named,  and  especially  from  the  Bible,  he 
had  acquired  that  clear,  concise,  simple,  nervous,  Anglo- 
Saxon  style  so  effective  with  the  people,  and  in  this  he  was 
scarcely  equalled  by  any  American  writer  or  speaker.  It  is 
wonderful  how  many  sentences  can  be  found  in  his  writings, 
short,  striking,  clear  and  emphatic,  in  which  every  word 
consists  of  a  single  syllable. 

His  residence  at  Vandalia  during  the  session  of  the 
Legislature,  and  his  removal  to  Springfield,  brought  him 
into  association  with  many  families  of  culture  and  refine 
ment.  He  now  met  as  associates  men  of  learning  and 
intellect.  He  had  access  to  all  the  books  he  could  read,  and 
the  world  of  English  literature,  history  and  science  lay  open 
before  him.  He  became  and  continued  through  life  a 
student,  always  seeking  and  constantly  acquiring  knowl 
edge.  He  was  never  ashamed  to  acknowledge  his  ignorance 
of  any  subject,  and  he  rarely  lost  an  opportunity  to  remedy 
it.  At  the  first  session  of  the  Legislature  he  took  no  very 
active  part  in  the  discussions,  but  was  studious  and  observ 
ant.  He  said  little,  and  learned  much. 

In  1836,  he  was  again  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature, 
and  in  this  canvass  he  greatly  distinguished  himself.  On 

1.  In  his  reply  to  Douglas,  at  Springfield,  July  17,  1858,  he  eaid:  "I  set  out  in 
this  campaign  with  the  intention  of  conducting  it  strictly  as  a  gentleman,  in  substance, 
at  least,  if  not  in.  outside  polish.  The  latter  I  shall  never  be,  but  that  which  consti 
tutes  the  Inside  of  a  gentleman,  I  hope  I  understand,  and  I  am  not  less  inclined  to 
practice  than  another."  (Lincoln  and  Douglas  Debates,  p.  57.) 


THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE.  47 

one  occasion  there  was  to  be  a  public  discussion  among  the 
opposing  candidates,  held  at  the  Court  House  at  Springfield, 
and  Lincoln,  among  others,  was  advertised  to  speak.  This 
was  his  first  appearance  "  on  the  stump  "  at  the  County  Seat. 
There  lived  at  this  time  in  the  most  pretentious  house  in  the 
town  a  prominent  citizen  with  the  name  of  George  Forquer. 
He  had  been  long  in  public  life,  had  been  a  leading  whig, 
the  party  to  which  Lincoln  belonged,  but  had  lately  gone 
over  to  the  democrats,  and  received  from  the  democratic 
administration  an  appointment  to  the  lucrative  post  of 
Register  of  the  Land  Office  at  Springfield.  Upon  his  hand 
some  new  house  he  had  lately  placed  a  lightning  rod,  the 
first  one  ever  put  up  in  Sangamon  County.  As  Lincoln  was 
riding  into  town  with  his  friends  they  passed  the  fine  house 
of  Forquer,  and  observed  the  novelty  of  the  lightning  rod, 
discussing  the  manner  in  which  it  protected  the  house  from 
being  struck  by  lightning. 

There  was  a  very  large  meeting,  and  there  was  great 
curiosity  to  hear  the  orator  from  New  Salem,  who,  as  the 
"  Clary  Grove  Boys  "  insisted,  could  make  a  better  stump 
speech  than  any  man  at  the  County  Seat.  A  Kentuckian,1 
then  lately  from  his  native  state,  and  who  had  heard  Clay, 
Rowan,  and  many  of  the  orators  for  which  that  state  was 
then  so  distinguished,  says:  "  I  stood  near  Lincoln  and  heard 
his  speech,  and  it  struck  me  then,  and  it  seems  to  me  now,  I 
never  heard  a  more  effective  speaker."  *  *  *  "  The 
crowd  seemed  to  be  swayed  by  him,  as  he  pleased."2 

There  were  seven  whig  and  seven  democratic  candidates 
for  the  lower  branch  of  the  Legislature,  and  after  several  had 
spoken,  it  fell  to  Lincoln  to  close  the  discussion.  He  did  it 
with  great  ability.  Forquer,  though  not  a  candidate,  then 
asked  to  be  heard  for  the  democrats  in  reply  to  Lincoln. 
He  was  a  good  speaker,  and  well  known  throughout  the 
county.  His  special  task  that  day  was  to  attack  and  ridicule 

1.  Joshua  F.  Speed. 

2.  Joshua  F.  Speed.    See  the  Lincoln  Memorial  Album,  pp.  144,  145. 


48  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  young  countryman  from  Salem.  Turning  to  Lincoln, 
who  stood  within  a  few  feet  of  him,  he  said  :  "  This  young 
man  must  be  taken  down,  and  I  am  truly  sorry  that  the  task 
devolves  upon  me."  He  then  proceeded,  in  a  very  overbear 
ing  way,  and  with  an  assumption  of  great  supe 
riority,  to  attack  Lincoln  and  his  speech.  He  was 
fluent  and  ready  with  the  rough  sarcasm  of  the  stump,  and 
he  went  on  to  ridicule  the  person,  dress,  and  arguments  of 
Lincoln  with  so  much  success  that  Lincoln's  friends  feared 
that  he  would  be  embarrassed  and  overthrown.  The  "  Clary 
Grove  Boys,"  who  were  present  to  cheer,  applaud,  and  back 
Lincoln,  could  scarcely  be  restrained  from  getting  up  a  fight 
in  behalf  of  their  favorite.  They  and  all  his  friends,  felt 
that  the  attack  was  ungenerous  and  unmanly. 

Lincoln,  however,  stood  calm,  but  his  flashing  eye  and 
pale  cheek  indicated  his  indignation.  As  soon  as  Forquer 
had  closed,  he  took  the  stand  and  first  answered  his  oppo 
nent's  arguments,  fully  and  triumphantly.  So  impressive 
were  his  words  and  manner  that  a  hearer  1  believes  that  he 
can  remember  to  this  day,  and  repeat,  some  of  the  expres 
sions.  Among  other  things,  he  said  :  "  The  gentleman  com 
menced  his  speech  by  saying  that  '  this  young  man,'  alluding 
to  me,  must  be  taken  down.  I  am  not  so  young  in  years,  as 
I  am  in  the  tricks  and  the  trades  of  a  politician,  but,"  said 
he,  pointing  to  Forquer,  "  live  long  or  die  young,  I  would 
rather  die  now,  than,  like  the  gentleman,  change  my  politics,, 
and  with  the  change  receive  an  office  worth  three  thousand 
dollars  a  year,  and  then,"  continued  he,  "then  feel  obliged 
to  erect  a  lightning-rod  over  my  house  to  protect  a  guilty 
conscience  from  an  offended  God." 

It  is  difficult  to-day  to  appreciate  the  effect  on  the  old 
settlers,  of  this  figure.  This  lightning  rod  was  the  first 
which  most  of  those  present  had  ever  seen.  They  had  slept  all 
their  lives  in  their  cabins,  in  conscious  security.  Here  was. 
a  man  who  seemed  to  these  simple-minded  people  to  be 
afraid  to  sleep  in  his  own  house,  without  special  and  extra- 

1.  Joshua  F.  Speed.    Letter  of  1882. 


THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE.  49 

ordinary  protection  from  Almighty  God.  These  old  settlers 
thought  that  nothing  but  the  consciousness  of  guilt,  the 
stings  of  a  guilty  conscience,  could  account  for  such  timid 
ity.  Forquer  and  his  lightning-rod  were  talked  over  in  every 
settlement  from  the  Sangamon  to  the  Illinois  and  the 
Wabash.  Whenever  he  rose  to  speak  thereafter,  they  said 
"  there  is  the  man  who  dare  not  sleep  in  his  own  house, 
without  a  lightning-rod  to  keep  off  the  vengeance  of  the 
Almighty." 

Lincoln's  reply  to  Dr.  Early,  a  prominent  democratic  lead 
er,  in  the  same  canvass,  has  been  often  spoken  of  as  exhibiting 
wonderful  ability,  and  a  crushing  power  of  sarcasm  and 
ridicule.  When  he  began  he  was  embarrassed,  spoke  slowly, 
and  with  some  hesitation  and  difficulty,  but  soon  becoming 
warm,  and  excited  by  his  subject,  he  forgot  himself  entirely,, 
and  went  on  with  argument  and  wit,  anecdote  and  ridicule,, 
until  his  opponent  was  completely  crushed.1  Old  settlers 
of  Sangamon  County,  who  heard  this  reply,  speak  of  his 
personal  transformation  as  wonderful.  When  Lincoln  be 
gan,  they  say,  he  seemed  awkward,  homely,  unprepossessing. 
As  he  went  on,  and  became  excited,  his  figure  rose  to  its  full 
height,  and  became  commanding  and  majestic.  His  plain 
face  was  illuminated  and  glowed  with  expression.  His 
dreamy  eye  flashed  with  inspiration,  and  his  whole  person, 
his  voice,  his  gestures,  were  full  of  the  magnetism  of  power 
ful  feeling,  of  conscious  strength  and  true  eloquence. 

Among  the  democratic  orators  who  canvassed  Sanga 
mon  County  in  1836,  was  Colonel  Dick  Taylor.  He  was  a 
small,  but  very  pompous  little  gentleman,  who  rode  about  in  his 
carriage,  neatly  dressed,  with  many  and  very  conspicuous  ruf 
fles  to  his  shirt,  with  patent  leather  boots,  kid  gloves,  some  dia 
monds  and  gold  studs  in  his  linen,  an  immense  watch-chain 
with  many  seals,  charms,  and  pendants,  and  altogether  in 
most  striking  contrast  with  the  simple,  and  plainly  clad  peo 
ple  whom  he  addressed.  The  Colonel  was  a  very  amiable 
man,  but  pompous.  Vain,  and  affecting  to  be,  withal,  an  ex- 

1.  Holland's  Life  of  Lincoln. 
4 


5O  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

treme  democrat,  he  had  much  to  say  of  "the  bone  and 
sinew"  of  the  land,  "the  hard-handed  yeomanry."  He  was 
very  sarcastic  on  the  whig  "aristocracy,"  the  "rag  barons," 
the  "silk  stocking  gentry."  Lincoln,  the  candidate  of  this 
so-called  aristocracy,  was  dressed  in  Kentucky  jeans,  coarse 
boots,  checkered  shirt  buttoned  round  his  neck  without  a 
neck-tie,  an  old  slouched  hat,  and  certainly  the  last  thing  he 
or  his  appearance  could  suggest,  would  be  that  of  anything 
aristocratic. 

On  one  occasion  when  Lincoln  was  present,  Taylor,  in 
the  midst  of  a  most  violent  harangue  against  the  whig  aris 
tocrats,  made  a  gesture  so  forcibly,  that  he  tore  the  buttons 
off  his  vest,  and  the  whole  magnificence  of  his  ruffles,  gold 
watch  chain,  seals,  etc.,  burst  forth,  fully  exposed.  Taylor 
paused  in  embarrassment.  Lincoln  stepping  to  the  front,  and 
turning  to  Taylor,  pointed  to  his  ruffles  and  exclaimed,  "  Be 
hold  the  hard-fisted  democrat.  Look,  gentlemen,  at  this 
specimen  of  the  bone  and  sinew.  And  here,  gentlemen," 
said  he,  laying  his  great  bony  hand  bronzed  with  work,  on 
his  own  heart,  "here  at  your  service,"  bowing,  "here  is  your 
aristocrat!  here  is  one  of  your  silk  stocking  gentry!  "  Spread 
ing  out  his  hands.  "  Here  is  your  rag  baron  with  his  lily- white 
hands.  Yes,  I  suppose,"  continued  he,  "  I,  according  to  my 
friend  Taylor,  am  a  bloated  aristocrat."  The  contrast  was 
irresistibly  ludicrous,  and  the  crowd  burst  into  shouts  of 
laughter  and  uproar.  In  this  campaign  the  reputation  of 
Lincoln  as  a  speaker  was  established,  and  ever  afterwards 
he  was  recognized  as  one  of  the  great  orators  of  the  state. 

The  Sangamon  delegation  to  the  Legislature,  there  being 
two  senators  and  seven  members  of  the  House — nine  in  all, 
and  each  over  six  feet  high — was  known  as  the  "Long  Nine," 
and  Lincoln,  being  tallest  of  all,  was  called  the  "  Sangamon 
Chief."  Among  his  colleagues  from  Sangamon,  were  Ed 
ward  D.  Baker,  afterwards  member  of  Congress  and  United 
States  Senator,— killed  at  Balls  Bluff,  and  Ninian  W.  Ed 
wards,  son  of  Governor  Ninian  Edwards.  Among  his 
fellow-members  of  the  House,  were  Stephen  Arnold 


THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE.  51 

Douglas,  John  J.  Hardin,  James  Shields,  William  A. 
Richardson,  John  Logan,  John  A.  McClernand,  and  others 
who  became  prominent  in  the  state  and  nation.  In  this 
canvass  he  had  received,  as  in  1834,  the  highest  vote  given 
to  any  man  on  the  ticket.  At  the  first  session  (1836-7),  he 
advocated  and  voted  for  measures  for  opening  the  great 
ship  canal  from  Lake  Michigan  to  the  Illinois  River.  This 
work,  which  would  bring  into  exchange  the  commerce  of  the 
Lakes  and  the  Mississippi,  by  cutting  through  the  short  por 
tage  between  Lake  Michigan  and  the  Illinois  River,  needs 
but  to  be  enlarged  to  the  size  contemplated  in  its  original 
plan,  to  realize  all,  and  more,  than  was  expected  from  it.  He 
also  voted  for  a  system  of  internal  improvements  by  means 
of  railroads,  far,  very  far,  in  advance  of  the  needs  of  the 
state  at  that  time,  and  very  much  exceeding  the  ability  of 
the  people  to  pay  for;  yet  such  was  the  popular  delusion, 
that  the  people  of  Sangamoh  County  instructed  their  delega 
tion  to  vote  "  for  a  general  system  of  internal  improvement," 
and  not  only  Lincoln,  but  Douglas,  and  nearly  all  the  prom 
inent  members,  voted  for  this  extravagant  measure.1  Or- 
ville  H.  Browning,  then  senator  from  Adams  County,  and 
afterwards  United  States  senator,  had  the  honor  of  opposing 
this  system. 

For  the  immediate  constituents  of  Sangamon  County,  Lin 
coln  and  the  "Long  Nine  "succeeded  in  getting  a  law  passed 
removing  the  capital  from  Vandalia  to  Springfield.  A  fel 
low  member,  one  of  the  "  Nine,"  speaking  of  this  measure 
says:  "When  our  bill  to  all  appearance  was  dead,  and  beyond 
resuscitation,  *  *  and  our  friends  could  see  no  hope,  Lin 
coln  never  for  a  moment  despaired,  but  collecting  his  col 
leagues  in  his  room  for  consultation,  his  practical  common 
sense,  his  thorough  knowledge  of  human  nature,  made  him 
an  overmatch  for  his  compeers,  and  for  any  man  I  have  ever 
known."2 

At  this  session,  and  on  the  3d  of  March,  1837,  he  began 
that  series  of  anti-slavery  measures  which  were  ended  and 

1.  See  Ford's  History  of  Illinois. 

2.  Robert  L  Wilson.    See  Journal  of  House  of  Representatives,  1836-7. 


52  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

consummated  in  the  "Proclamation  of  Emancipation,"  and 
the  "Amendment  of  the  Constitution,"  abolishing  and  pro 
hibiting  slavery  forever  throughout  the  republic.  At  this 
time  it  required  courage  to  speak  or  write  against  slavery. 
Resolutions  of  an  extremely  violent  pro-slavery  character, 
and  denunciatory  of  "  abolitionists  "  and  all  efforts  to  abol 
ish  or  restrict  slavery,  were  carried  through  the  Legislature 
by  overwhelming  majorities.  The  people  of  Illinois  at  that 
time,  were  made  up  largely  of  emigrants  from  the  slave 
states,  filled  with  the  prejudices  of  that  section,  and  the 
feeling  against  anti-slavery  men  was  violent,  and  almost  uni 
versal.  There  then  existed  in  Illinois  a  body  of  laws  against 
negroes,  called  "  The  Black  Code,"  of  most  revolting  cruelty 
and  severity.  Under  these  circumstances  Lincoln  jeopar 
dized  his  popularity  by  drawing  up  and  signing  a  solemn 
protest  against  these  resolutions.  But  among  all  the  mem 
bers  of  the  House,  over  one  hundred  in  number,  he  found 
only  one  who  had  the  courage  to  join  him.  Abraham  Lin 
coln  and  Dan  Stone  were  the  only  ones  who  had  the  nerve 
to  express  and  record  their  protest  against  the  injustice  of 
slavery.  This  protest,  qualified  as  it  was  to  meet,  if  possi 
ble,  the  temper  of  the  times,  declared  that  slavery  is  founded 
on  injustice  and  bad  policy.1 

1.  The  following  is  the  protest  in  full.    See  House  Journal  of  Illinois  Legislature,. 

1836-7,  pp.  817,  818. 

"March  3,  1837. 

"  The  following  protest  was  presented  to  the  House,  which  was  read  and  ordered 
to  be  spread  on  the  journals,  to  wit : 

"Resolutions  upon  the  subject  of  domestic  slavery  having  passed  both  branches 
of  the  General  Assembly  at  its  present  session,  the  undersigned  hereby  protest  against 
the  passage  of  the  same. 

"  They  believe  that  the  institution  of  slavery  is  founded  on  both  injustice  and  bad 
policy,  but  that  the  promulgation  of  abolition  doctrine  tends  rather  to  increase  than 
to  abate  its  evils. 

"  They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  has  no  power,  under  the 
'  Constitution '  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  different  States. 

"They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  has  the  power,  under  the 
*  Constitution,'  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  but  that  that  power 
ought  not  to  be  exercised,  unless  at  the  request  of  the  people  of  said  district. 

"The  differences  between  these  opinions,  and  those  contained  in  the  said  resolu 
tions,  is  their  reason  for  entering  this  protest.  / 

"DAN  STONE, 

"  A.  LINCOLN, 

"  Representatives  from  the  county  of  Sangamon:* 


THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE.  53 

In  1838,  Lincoln  was  again  elected  to  the  Legislature. 
One  of  his  colleagues,1  who  made  the  canvass  in  a  part  of 
the  county  with  him,  says:  "We  called  at  nearly  every 
house.  *  *  *  Everybody  knew  Lincoln.  It  was,  then, 
the  universal  custom  to  keep  whiskey  in  the  house,  for  pri 
vate  use,  and  to  treat  friends.  Everywhere  the  master  of  the 
house,  addressing  Lincoln,  would  say:  '  You  never  drink, 
but  may  be  your  friend  will  take  a  little.'"  "  I  never  saw 
Lincoln  drink,  and  he  told  me  he  never  drank."  2  He  was 
now  the  acknowledged  leader  of  his  party,  and  they  made 
him  their  candidate  for  speaker;  but  his  party,  the  whigs, 
being  in  a  minority,  he  was  not  elected. 

The  great  service  he  had  rendered  the  town  of  Spring 
field,  in  carrying  through  the  law  for  removing  the  capital 
to  that  place,  was  gratefully  appreciated,  and  his  many 
friends  urged  him  to  come  there  to  live  and  practice  law. 
His  old  friend,  John  T.  Stuart,  a  lawyer  of  established  posi 
tion  and  in  good  practice,  offered  him  a  partnership.  This 
offer  he  gladly  accepted,  and  in  April,  1837,  he  removed  to, 
and  made  his  home  in  Springfield.  He  had  been  admitted 
to  the  bar  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  fall  of  1836,  but  his 
name  does  not  appear  on  the  roll  of  attorneys  until  1837. 
On  the  27th  of  April  of  that  year  he  entered  into  partnership 
with  Stuart,  under  the  name  of  Stuart  and  Lincoln,  and  this 
partnership  continued  until  the  i/j-th  day  of  April,  1841. 3 

His  friend  Speed,  speaking  of  his  entry  into  Springfield, 
says:  "  He  rode  into  town  on  a  borrowed  horse,  without 

1.  Robert  L.  Wilson. 

2.  Robert  L.  Wilson. 

3.  "SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  September  7,  1882. 
*'  HON.  ISAAC  N.  ARNOLD. 

"  Dear  Sir:— I  have  received  your  favor  of  the  4th  inst.,  and  I  answer. 

"  The  partnership,  between  myself  and  Mr.  Lincoln,  was  entered  into,  on  the  27th 
•day  of  April,  1837,  and  continued  until  the  14th  day  of  April,  1841. 

"  The  partnership,  between  Judge  Logan  and  Mr  Lincoln,  was  entered  into  on  the 
14th  of  April,  1841,  and  continued  until  about  the  20th  of  September,  1843. 

"About  the  20th  of  September,  1843,  Mr.  Lincoln  and  William  H.  Herndon,  entered 
into  partnership,  which  continued  until  the  death  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 

"  Mr.  Lincoln  never  had  any  other  partner  in  Sangamon  County,  his  home,  and  so 
far  as  I  am  informed,  never  had  one  elsewhere. 

"  Respectfully  your  friend,  JOHNT.  STUART." 


54  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

earthly  goods,  but  a  pair  of  saddle-bags,  two  or  three  law- 
books,  and  some  clothing  in  his  saddle-bags.  He  came  into 
my  store,  set  his  saddle-bags  on  the  counter,  and  said: 

"  *  Speed,  tell  me  what  the  furniture  for  a  single  bed-room 
will  cost.' 

"  I  took  my  pencil,  figured  it  up,  and  found  it  would  cost 
seventeen  dollars. 

"Lincoln  replied:  'It  is  cheap  enough,  but  I  want  to 
say,  cheap  as  it  is,  I  have  not  the  money  to  pay.  But  if  you 
will  credit  me  until  Christmas,  and  my  experiment  here  is  a 
success,  I  will  pay  you  then.  If  I  fail,  I  will  probably  never 
be  able  to  pay  you.' 

"  The  voice  was  so  melancholy,  I  felt  for  him." 

Lincoln  was  evidently  suffering  from  one  of  his  fits  of 
depression  and  sadness.  Speed  kindly  replied: 

"  I  have  a  very  large  double  bed  which  you  are  perfectly 
welcome  to  share  with  me,  if  you  choose." 

"  Where  is  your  bed  ?  "  said  Lincoln. 

"Up-stairs,"  replied  Speed. 

He  took  his  saddle-bags  on  his  arm,  went  up  stairs, 
placed  them  on  the  floor,  and  came  down,  laughing,  saying: 
"  Speed,  I  am  moved."  *  The  ludicrous  idea  of  "  moving  " 
all  his  goods  and  chattels,  by  taking  his  saddle-bags  up 
stairs,  made  him  as  mirthful  as  he  had  been  melancholy. 

From  that  time  on,  Springfield  was  his  home  until  when, 
twenty-three  years  thereafter,  he  left  his  humble  residence  to 
occupy  the  White  House  as  President  of  the  United  States. 
He  and  Speed  took  their  meals  with  William  Butler,  a 
mutual  friend,  and  afterwards  Treasurer  of  the  State  of 
Illinois.  In  a  short  time,  by  his  close  application  and  indus 
try,  and  by  his  association  with  Stuart,  he  had  a  good  prac 
tice,  and  attended  courts  in  all  the  counties  near  Springfield. 

We  are  indebted  to  Mr.  Speed  for  another  incident,  illus 
trating  his  kindness  of  heart.  Lincoln  and  the  other  mem 
bers  of  the  bar  from  the  capital  had  been  attending  court 
at  Christiansburg,  and  Speed  was  riding  with  them  towards 

1.  Joshua  F.  Speed,  Lincoln  Memorial  Album,  pp.  145,  146, 


THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE.  55 

Springfield.  He  tells  us  that  there  was  quite  a  party  of  these 
lawyers,  riding,  two  by  two,  along  a  country  lane.  Lincoln 
and  John  J.  Hardin »  brought  up  the  rear  of  the  cavalcade. 
"  We  had  passed  through  a  thicket  of  wild  plum  and  crab- 
apple  trees,  and  stopped  to  water  our  horses.  Hardin  came 
up  alone. 

"  'Where  is  Lincoln/  we  inquired. 

" '  Oh,'  replied  he,  '  when  I  saw  him  last,  he  had  caught 
two  young  birds,  which  the  wind  had  blown  out  of  their 
nest,  and  he  was  hunting  the  nest  to  put  them  back.' 

"  In  a  short  time,  Lincoln  came  up,  having  found  the 
nest  and  placed  the  young  birds  in  it. 

"The  party  laughed  at  him,  but  he  said;  '  I  could  not 
have  slept  if  I  had  not  restored  those  little  birds  to  their 
mother.'  "  2 

The  act  was  characteristic,  and  illustrates  a  tenderness  of 
heart  which  never  failed  him.  To  that  tenderness  in  after 
life,  many  a  mother  appealed  in  behalf  of  a  wayward  son, 
and  rarely  in  vain. 

When  Lincoln  began  the  practice  of  law  in  Springfield, 
all  the  federal  courts  in  the  state  were  held  there.  John 
McLean,  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
was  the  circuit,  and  Nathaniel  Pope  the  district  judge.  Both 
were  good  lawyers,  and  very  able  men.  The  Supreme 
Court  of  the  state  then  held  all  its  sessions  at  the  capital, 
and  the  judges  were  sound  lawyers  and  men  of  high  per 
sonal  character.  The  Springfield  bar  was  especially  distin 
guished  for  its  able  lawyers  and  eloquent  advocates.  The 
state  was  sparsely  settled,  with  a  hardy,  fearless,  and  honest, 
but  very  litigious,  population. 

The  court  house  was  sometimes  framed  and  boarded, 
but  more  frequently  of  logs.  The  judge  sat  upon  a  raised 
platform,  behind  a  rough  board,  sometimes  covered  with 
green  baize,  for  a  table  on  which  to  write  his  notes.  A  small 
table  stood  on  the  floor  in  front,  for  the  clerk,  and  another 

1.  Killed  In  the  Mexican  war  at  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista. 

2.  Speed.    Lincoln  Memorial  Album,  p.  147. 


56  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

larger  one  in  front  of  the  clerk,  and  in  the  area  in  the  cen 
ter  of  the  room,  around  which  in  rude  chairs  the  lawyers 
were  grouped,  too  often  with  their  feet  on  top  of  it.  Rough 
benches  were  placed  there  for  the  jury,  parties,  witnesses, 
and  by-standers.  The  court  rooms  were  nearly  always 
crowded,  for  here  were  rehearsed  and  acted  the  dramas,  the 
tragedies,  and  the  comedies  of  real  life. 

The  court  house  has  always  been  a  very  attractive  place 
to  the  people  of  the  frontier.  It  supplied  the  place  of  thea 
tres,  lecture  and  concert  rooms,  and  other  places  of  interest 
and  amusement,  in  the  older  settlements  and  towns.  The 
leading  lawyers  and  judges  were  the  star  actors,  and  had  each 
his  partisans.  Hence  crowds  attended  the  courts  to  see 
the  judges,  to  hear  the  lawyers  contend  with  argument,  and 
law,  and  wit  for  success,  victory,  and  fame.  The  merits  and 
ability  of  the  leading  advocates  ;  their  success  or  discomfit 
ure  in  examining  or  cross-examining  a  witness  ;  the  ability 
of  this  or  that  one  to  obtain  a  verdict,  were  canvassed  at 
every  cabin-raising,  bee  or  horse-race,  and  at  every  log  house 
and  school  in  the  county.  Thus  the  lawyers  were  stimu 
lated  to  the  utmost  exertion  of  their  powers,  not  only  by 
controversy  and  desire  of  success,  but  by  the  consciousness 
that  their  efforts  were  watched  with  eagerness  by  friends, 
clients,  partisans,  and  rivals. 

From  one  to  another  of  these  rude  court  houses,  the 
gentlemen  of  the  bar  passed,  following  the  judge  around 
his  circuit  from  county  to  county,  traveling  generally  on 
horseback,  with  saddle-bags,  brushes,  an  extra  shirt  or  two, 
and  perhaps  two  or  three  law  books.  Sometimes  two  or  three 
lawyers  would  unite  and  travel  in  a  buggy,  and  the  poorer 
and  younger  ones  not  seldom  walked.  But  a  horse  was  not 
an  unusual  fee,  and  in  those  days  when  horse  thieves,  as 
clients,  were  but  too  common,  it  was  not  long  before  a  young 
man  of  ability  found  himself  well  mounted.  There  was 
great  freedom  in  social  intercourse.  Manners  were  rude, 
but  genial,  kind,  and  friendly.  Each  was  always  ready  to 
assist  his  fellows,  and  selfishness  was  not  tolerated.  The 
relations  between  the  bench  and  bar  were  familiar,  free,  and 


THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE.  57 

easy,  and  flashes  of  wit,  humor,  and  repartee  were  constantly 
exchanged. 

Such  was  the  life  upon  which  Lincoln  now  entered,  and 
there  gathered  with  him,  around  those  pine  tables  of  the 
frontier  court  house,  a  very  remarkable  combination  of 
men  ;  men  who  would  have  been  leaders  of  the  bar  at  Bos 
ton  or  New  York,  Philadelphia  or  Washington  ;  men  who 
would  have  made  their  mark  in  Westminster  Hall,  or  upon 
any  English  circuit.  At  the  capital  were  John  T.  Stuart, 
Stephen  T.  Logan, 1  Edward  D.  Baker,  Ninian  W.  Edwards, 
Josiah  Lamborn,  attorney-general,  and  many  others.  Among 
the  leading  lawyers  from  other  parts  of  the  state,  who  prac 
ticed  in  the  Supreme  and  Federal  Courts  at  the  capital, 
were  Stephen  Arnold  Douglas  ;  Lyman  Trumbull,  for  many 
many  years  chairman  of  the  judiciary  committee  of  the 
United  States  Senate  ;  O.  H.  Browning,  senator  and  mem 
ber  of  the  cabinet  at  Washington  ;  William  H.  Bissell,  mem 
ber  of  Congress,  and  governor  of  the  state  ;  David  Davis, 
justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  senator,  and  Vice-President 
of  the  United  States  ;  Justin  Butterfield, 2  of  Chicago,  and 
many  others  almost,  or  quite,  equally  distinguished. 

1.  A  man  whom  Judge  McLean  pronounced  the  ablest  nisiprius  lawyer  in  the 

United  States. 

2.  Justin  Butterfield  was  among  the  ablest  lawyers  of  Chicago.     I  insert  the  fol 
lowing  incidents  connected  with  him  and  illustrating  life  at  that  time: 

In  Presence  of  the  Pope,  Angels,  Prophet,  and  Apostles. —  In  December,  1842, 
Governor  Ford,  on  the  application  of  the  executive  of  Missouri,  issued  a  warrant 
for  the  arrest  of  Joseph  Smith,  the  apostle  of  Mormonism,  then  residing  at  Nauvoo  in 
this  state,  as  a  fugitive  from  justice.  He  was  charged  with  having  instigated  the 
attempt,  by  some  Mormons,  to  assassinate  Governor  Boggs  of  Missouri.  Mr.  Butter- 
tield,  in  behalf  of  Smith,  sued  out,  from  Judge  Pope,  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and 
Smith  was  brought  before  the  United  States  District  Court.  On  the  hearing  it  clearly 
appeared  that  he  had  not  been  in  Missouri,  nor  out  of  Illinois,  within  the  time  in 
which  the  crime  had  been  committed,  and  if  he  had  any  connection  with  the  offence, 
the  acts  must  have  been  done  in  Illinois.  Was  he  then  a  fugitive  from  justice?  It 
was  pretty  clear,  that  if  allowed  to  be  taken  into  Missouri,  means  would  have  been 
found  to  condemn  and  execute  him.  The  Attorney  General  of  Illinois,  Mr.  Lamborn, 
appeared  to  sustain  the  warrant.  Mr.  Butterfield,  aided  by  B.  F.  Edwards,  appeared 
for  Smith,  and  moved  for  his  discharge.  The  prophet  (so  called)  was  attended  by  his 
twelve  apostles,  and  a  large  number  of  his  followers,  and  the  case  attracted  great 
interest.  The  court  room  was  thronged  with  prominent  members  of  the  bar  and  pub 
lic  men.  Judge  Pope  was  a  gallant  gentleman  of  the  old  school,  and  loved  nothing 
better  than  to  be  in  the  midst  of  youth  and  beauty.  Seats  were  crowded  on  the 
judge's  platform  on  both  sides  and  behind  the  judge,  and  an  array  of  brilliant  and 


58  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

It  was  with  these  men  that  Lincoln  now  came  into  con 
stant  collision  and  competition.  It  was  in  conflict  with 
these  intellectual  giants  at  the  bar  and  on  the  stump  that  he 
was  trained  and  disciplined  for  the  great  work  before  him, 
In  those  days  law  libraries  were  small,  and  comparatively 

beautiful  ladies  almost  encircled  the  court.  Mr.  Butterfield,  dressed  a  la  Webster,  in 
blue  dress-coat  and  metal  buttons,  with  buff  vest,  rose  with  dignity,  and  amidst  the 
most  profound  silence.  Pausing,  and  running  his  eyes  admiringly  from  the  central 
figure  of  Judge  Pope  along  the  rows  of  lovely  women  on  each  side  of  him,  he  said: 

"May  it  please  the  Court, 

"  I  appear  before  you  to-day  under  circumstances  most  novel  and  peculiar.  I  am 
to  address  the 4  Pope '  (bowing  to  the  judge)  surrounded  by  angels  (bowing  still  lower 
to  the  ladies),  in  the  presence  of  the  holy  apostles,  in  behalf  of  the  prophet  of  the 
Lord." 

Among  the  most  lovely  and  attractive  of  these  u  angels,"  were  the  daughters  of 
Judge  Pope,  a  daughter  of  Mr.  Butterfield,  Mrs.  Lincoln,  Miss  Dunlap,  afterwards 
Mrs.  Gen.  Jno.  A.  McClernand,  and  others,  some  of  whom  still  live,  and  the  tradition 
of  their  youthful  beauty  is  verified  by  their  lovely  daughters  and  grandchildren. 

General  Shields  and  the  Shot  that  Killed  Breese. — All  the  old  members  of  the  bar 
will  recall  with  pleasant  recollections  a  gallant  and  genial  Irishman,  James  Shields,  of 
Tyrone  County,  Ireland.  He  was,  however,  more  distinguished  as  a  politician  and 
soldier,  than  as  a  lawyer  and  judge.  In  1848,  he  was  elected  to  the  United  States 
Senate,  succeeding  Senator  Breese,  who  was  a  candidate  for  re-election.  At  the  bat 
tle  of  Cerro  Gordo,  in  the  war  against  Mexico,  he  was  shot  through  the  lungs,  the 
ball  passing  out  at  his  back.  His  nomination  over  a  man  so  distinguished  as  Judge 
Breese  was  a  surprise  to  many,  and  was  the  reward  for  his  gallantry  and  wound.  His 
political  enemies  said  his  recovery  was  marvellous,  and  that  his  wound  was  miracu 
lously  cured,  so  that  no  scar  could  be  seen  where  the  bullet  entered  and  passed  out  of 
his  body,  all  of  which  was  untrue.  The  morning  after  the  nomination,  Mr.  Butter- 
field,  who  was  as  violent  a  whig  as  General  Shields  was  a  democrat,  met  one  of  the 
judges  in  the  Supreme  Court  room,  who  expressed  his  astonishment  at  the  result,  but 
added  the  judge,  "It  was  the  war  and  that  Mexican  bullet  that  did  the  business." 
"Yes,"  answered  Mr.  Butterfield,  dryly,  "and  what  an  extraordinary,  what  a  wonder 
ful  shot  that  was!  The  ball  went  clean  through  Shields  without  hurting  him,  or  even 
leaving  a  scar,  and  killed  Breese  a  thousand  miles  away." 

"Oyer"  and  "  Terminer:"— It  was  on  one  of  the  Northern  Circuits,  held  by  Judge 
Jesse  B.  Thomas,  that  Mr.  Butterfield,  irritated  by  the  delay  of  the  judge  in  deciding 
a  case,  which  he  had  argued  some  time  before,  came  in  one  morning  and  said  with 
great  gravity:  "  I  believe,  if  your  Honor  please,  this  Court  is  called  the  '  Oyer  and 
Terminer.'  /think  it  ought  to  be  called  the  'Oyer  sans  Terminer,'"  and  sat  down. 
The  next  morning,  when  counsel  were  called  for  motions,  Mr.  Butterfield  called  up  a 
pending  motion  for  new  trial  in  an  important  case.  "  The  motion  is  overruled,"  said 
Judge  Thomas,  abruptly.  "  Yesterday  you  declared  this  Court  ought  to  be  called  Oyer 
sans  Terminer,  so,"  continued  the  judge,  "as  I  had  made  up  my  mind  in  this  case,  I 
thought  I  would  decide  it  promptly:''  Mr.  Butterfield  seemed  for  a  moment  a  little 
disconcerted,  but  directly  added:  "  May  it  please  your  Honor,  yesterday  this  Court  was 
a  Court  of  Oyer  sans  Terminer;  to-day  your  Honor  has  reversed  the  order,  it  Is  now 
Terminer  sans  Oyer.  But  I  believe  I  should  prefer  the  injustice  of  interminable 
delay,  rather  than  the  swift  and  inevitable  blunders  your  Honor  is  sure  to  make  by- 
guessing  without  hearing  argument." 


THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE.  59 

few  adjudicated  cases  could  be  found,  so  that  the  questions 
which  arose  had  to  be  solved,  not  by  finding  a  case  in  point, 
but  by  the  application  of  principle.  These  men  were  there 
fore  constantly  trained  to  reason  from  analogy,  and  the  result 
was  a  bar,  which  for  ability,  logic,  and  eloquence,  had  no 
occasion  to  fear  comparison  with  any  in  the  American  Union. 
It  was  thus  that  Lincoln  was  educated  and  trained,  and 
became  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  and  advocates  in  the 
United  States.  From  1839  to  1860  he  was  in  constant  prac 
tice  before  the  State  and  Federal  Courts  of  Illinois,  and  was 
often  called  on  special  retainers  into  other  states. 

There  will  be  occasion  to  speak  more  fully  of  Lincoln  as 
a  lawyer  and  advocate  by  and  by  ;  suffice  it  now  to  say 
that  in  his  practice  on  the  circuit  and  before  the  Supreme 
Court  he  was  popular  with  the  bench,  bar,  jury,  and  specta 
tors.  His  wit  and  humor,  his  wonderful  ability  to  illustrate 
by  apt  stories  and  anecdotes,  was  unrivaled. 

This  "  circuit  riding  "  involved  all  sorts  of  adventures. 
Hard  fare  at  miserable  country  taverns,  sleeping  on  the 
floor  and  fording  swollen  streams  were  every  day  occur 
rences.  All  such  occurrences  were  met  with  good  humor 
and  often  turned  into  sources  of  frolic  and  fun.  In  fording 
swollen  streams,  Lincoln  was  frequently  sent  forward  as  a 
scout,  or  pioneer.  His  extremely  long  legs  enabled  him,  by 
taking  off  his  boots  and  stockings,  and  by  rolling  up,  or 
otherwise  disposing  of  his  trousers,  to  test  the  depth  of  the 
stream,  find  the  most  shallow  water,  and  thus  to  pilot  the 
party  through  the  current  without  wetting  his  garments. 

In  1840  he  was  again  elected  to  the  Legislature,  and  at 
this  term  he  had  as  his  colleague  his  old  friend,  John  Cal- 
houn.  He  was  again  a  candidate  for  speaker.  Having 
been  elected  four  times  to  as  many  biennial  terms  of  the 
Legislature,  he  declined  again  to  be  a  candidate. 

In  looking  over  his  eight  years  service  in  the  General 
Assembly,  there  appears  little  indication  of  the  great  ability 
as  a  statesman,  which  he  afterwards  developed.  It  is  true 
that  his  party  was,  at  all  times,  in  a  minority,  and  that  the 


-6O  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

population  of  the  state  was  small.  The  legislation  con 
sisted  largely  of  measures  for  opening  roads,  building 
bridges,  and  for  other  local  purposes,  and  the  bills  for  the 
construction  of  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal,  and  other 
internal  improvements.  If  he  had  died  at  the  close  of  his 
service  in  the  General  Assembly,  neither  the  nation  nor  his 
own  state  would  have  known  very  much  of  Abraham  Lin 
coln.  He  had  not  yet  fully  developed  those  great  qualities, 
nor  rendered  those  great  services,  which  have  since  made 
him  known  throughout  the  world.  All  who  closely  studied 
.  his  history  will  observe  that  he  continued  to  grow  and 
•expand  in  intellect  and  character  to  the  day  of  his  death. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MISCELLANEOUS  SPEECHES  AND  MARRIAGE. 

SPEECH  OF  1837  ON  PERPETUATION  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT. —  REPLY- 
TO  DOUGLAS  IN  1839. —  TEMPERANCE  ADDRESS. —  PARTNERSHIP 
WITH  JUDGE  LOGAN.— CAMPAIGN  OF  1840. —  PROTECTS  BAKER 
WHILE  SPEAKING. —  MARY  TODD. —  LINCOLN'S  COURTSHIP. — 
CHALLENGED  BY  SHIELDS. —  His  MARRIAGE. —  ENTERTAINS 
PRESIDENT  VAN  BUREN. —  ELECTED  TO  CONGRESS. 

DURING  these  years  in  the  State  Legislature,  Lincoln  had 
written  and  delivered  various  occasional  addresses,  which, 
in  the  light  of  his  subsequent  history,  are  curiously  signifi 
cant. 

On  the  2yth  of  January,  1837,  he  read  before  the  Young 
Men's  Lyceum  at  Springfield,  and  at  the  request  of  that 
body,  an  address  on  the  "  Perpetuation  of  our  Political 
Institutions."  Also  at  the  request  of  the  young  men  com 
posing  the  association  he  furnished  a  copy  of  this  address 
for  publication,  and  it  may  be  found  in  the  Weekly  Journal \ 
then  published  at  Springfield.  He  was  not  at  that  time 
twenty-eight  years  old,  and  taking  into  consideration  his 
early  life  and  education,  it  is  very  remarkable  as  a  literary 
effort.  As  such  it  would  do  credit  to  any  college  graduate. 
It  is  also  the  speech  of  a  young  statesman  who  has  already 
reflected  deeply  upon  our  institutions  and  the  dangers  to 
which  they  are  to  be  exposed.  It  is  the  speech  of  an  ardent 
patriot,  glowing  with  an  enthusiastic  love  of  liberty  and  of 
country.  The  language  is  impassioned  and  poetic,  and  as 

61 


62  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

compared  with  the  more  sober  and  chastened  efforts  of  later 
years,  is  especially  interesting.     It  begins  as  follows  : 

"  In  the  great  journal  of  things  happening  under  the  sun,  we,  the 
American  people,  find  our  account  running  under  date  of  the  nineteenth 
century  of  the  Christian  era.  We  find  ourselves  in  the  peaceful  posses 
sion  of  the  fairest  portion  of  the  earth,  as  regards  extent  of  territory, 
fertility  of  soil,  and  salubrity  of  climate.  We  find  ourselves  under  the 
government  of  a  system  of  political  institutions,  conducing  more  essen 
tially  to  the  ends  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  than  any  of  which  the  his 
tory  of  former  times  tells  us.  We,  when  mounting  the  stage  of  exist 
ence,  found  ourselves  the  legal  inheritors  of  these  fundamental  blessings. 
We  toiled  not  in  the  acquirement  or  the  establishment  of  them  ;  they  are 
a  legacy  bequeathed  to  us  by  a  once  hardy,  brave,  and  patriotic,  but  now 
lamented  and  departed  race  of  ancestors. 

"  Theirs  was  the  task  (and  nobly  they  performed  it)  to  possess  them 
selves,  and  through  themselves  us,  of  this  goodly  land,  and  to  rear  upon 
its  hills  and  valleys  a  political  edifice  of  liberty  and  equal  rights  :  'tis 
ours  only  to  transmit  these,  the  former  unprofaned  by  the  foot  of  the 
invader  ;  the  latter  undecayed  by  the  lapse  of  time.  This,  our  duty  to 
ourselves  and  to  our  posterity,  and  love  for  our  species  in  general,  imper 
atively  require  us  to  perform. 

"  How  then  shall  we  perform  it  ?  At  what  point  shall  we  expect 
the  approach  of  danger  ?  By  what  means  shall  we  fortify  against  it  ? 
Shall  we  expect  some  trans-atlantic  military  giant  to  step  across  the 
ocean  and  crush  us  at  a  blow  ?  Never.  All  the  armies  of  Europe,  Asia 
and  Africa  combined,  with  all  the  treasure  of  the  earth  (our  own  excepted) 
in  their  military  chest,  with  a  Bonaparte  for  a  commander,  could  not,  by 
force,  take  a  drink  from  the  Ohio,  or  make  a  track  on  the  Blue  Ridge,  in 
a  trial  of  a  thousand  years. 

' '  At  what  point  then  is  the  approach  of  danger  to  be  expected  ?  I 
answer,  if  it  ever  reaches  us,  it  must  spring  up  among  us.  It  can  not 
come  from  abroad.  If  destruction  be  our  lot,  we  must  ourselves  be  its 
author  and  finisher.  As  a  nation  of  freemen  we  must  live  through  all 
time,  or  die  by  suicide.  *  *  *  * 

"  There  is  even  now  something  of  ill  omen  among  us.  I  mean  the 
increasing  disregard  for  law  which  pervades  the  country  ;  the  growing 
disposition  to  substitute  the  wild  and  furious  passions  in  lieu  of  the  sober 
judgment  of  courts  ;  and  the  worse  than  savage  mobs,  for  the  executive 
ministers  of  justice.  This  disposition  is  awfully  fearful  in  any  commu 
nity,  and  that  it  now  exists  in  ours,  though  grating  to  our  feelings  to 
admit,  it  would  be  a  violation  of  truth,  and  an  insult  to  our  intelligence 
to  deny." 


MISCELLANEOUS  SPEECHES  AND  MARRIAGE.       63 

He  then  proceeds  to  recite  various  instances  of  violation 
of  law,  and  mob  violence,  and  recalls  the  shocking  case  of 
negro  burning  at  St.  Louis,  in  these  words  : 

"  Turn  then  to  that  horror  striking  scene  at  St.  Louis.  A  single 
victim  only  was  sacrificed  there.  His  story  is  very  short,  and  is  perhaps 
the  most  highly  tragic  of  anything  of  its  length,  that  has  ever  been  wit 
nessed  in  real  life.  A  mulatto  man,  by  the  name  of  Mclntosh,  was 
seized  in  the  street,  dragged  to  the  suburbs  of  the  city,  chained  to  a  tree, 
and  actually  burned  to  death.  And  all  within  a  single  hour  from  the 
time  he  had  been  a  free  man,  attending  to  his  own  business,  and  at  peace 
with  the  world."  ****** 

"  I  know  the  American  people  are  muck  attached  to  their  govern 
ment.  I  know  they  would  suffer  much  for  its  sake.  I  know  they  would 
endure  evils  long  and  patiently,  before  they  would  ever  think  of  exchang 
ing  it  for  another.  Yet  notwithstanding  all  this,  if  the  laws  be  contin 
ually  despised  and  disregarded,  if  their  rights  to  be  secure  in  their  per 
sons  and  property,  are  held  by  no  better  tenure  than  the  caprice  of  a  mob, 
the  alienation  of  their  affection  from  the  government  is  the  natural  con 
sequence,  and  to  that  sooner  or  later  it  must  come. 

"  Here,  then,  is  one  point  at  which  danger  may  be  expected.  The 
question  recurs,  How  shall  we  fortify  against  it?.  The  answer  is  sim 
ple.  Let  every  American,  every  lover  of  liberty,  every  well  wisher  to 
his  posterity,  swear  by  the  blood  of  the  revolution,  never  to  violate  in 
the  least  particular  the  laws  of  the  country,  and  never  to  tolerate  their 
violation  by  others.  As  the  patriots  of  '  seventy-six  '  did  to  the  support 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  so  to  the  support  of  the  Constitu 
tion  and  the  Laws,  let  every  American  pledge  his  life,  his  property,  and 
his  sacred  honor  ; — let  every  man  remember  that  to  violate  the  law  is  to 
trample  on  the  blood  of  his  father,  and  to  tear  the  charter  of  his  own  and 
his  children's  liberty.  Let  reverence  for  the  laws  be  breathed  by  every 
American  mother  to  the  lisping  babe  that  prattles  on  her  lap.  Let  it  be 
taught  in  schools,  in  seminaries,  and  in  colleges.  Let  it  be  written  in 
primers,  spelling  books  and  in  almanacs.  Let  it  be  preached  from  the  pul 
pit,  proclaimed  in  legislative  halls,  and  enforced  in  courts  of  justice. 
And  in  short,  let  it  become  the  political  religion  of  the  nation." 

"  There  is,"  says  he,  "  no  grievance  that  is  a  fit  object  of 
redress  by  mob-law."  He  then  points  out  the  dangers  threat 
ening  our  institutions,  from  military  leaders  and  reckless 
ambition,  and  continues  thus  : 

"  Many  great  and  good  men,  sufficiently  qualified  for  any  task  they 
should  undertake,  may  ever  be  found,  whose  ambition  would  aspire  to 
nothing  beyond  a  seat  in  Congress,  a  gubernatorial  or  a  presidential 


64  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

chair.  But  such  belong  not  to  the  family  of  the  lion,  or  the  brood  of  the 
eagle.  What  ?  Think  you  these  places  would  satisfy  an  Alexander,  a 
Caesar,  or  a  Napoleon  ?  Never  !  Towering  genius  disdains  a  beaten 
path.  It  seeks  regions  hitherto  unexplored.  It  sees  no  distinction  in 
adding  story  to  story,  upon  the  monuments  of  fame,  erected  to  the  mem 
ory  of  others.  It  denies  that  it  is  glory  enough  to  serve  under  any  chief. 
It  scorns  to  tread  in  the  footsteps  of  any  predecessor,  however  illustrious. 
It  thirsts  and  burns  for  distinction,  and  if  possible,  it  will  have  it, 
whether  at  the  expense  of  emancipating  slaves,  or  enslaving  free  men.  Is 
it  unreasonable,  then,  to  expect  that  some  men,  possessed  of  the  loftiest 
genius,  coupled  with  ambition  sufficient  to  push  it  to  its  utmost  stretch, 
will  at  some  time  spring  up  among  us  ?  And  when  such  a  one  does,  it 
will  require  the  people  to  be  united  with  each  other,  attached  to  the  gov 
ernment  and  laws,  and  generally  intelligent,  to  successfully  frustrate  his 
design. 

"  Distinction  will  be  his  paramount  object,  and  although  he  would 
as  willingly,  perhaps  more  so,  acquire  it  by  doing  good  as  harm,  yet  that 
opportunity  being  passed,  and  nothing  left  to  be  done  in  the  way  of  build 
ing  up,  he  would  sit  down  boldly  to  the  task  of  pulling  down.  Here 
then  is  a  probable  case,  highly  dangerous,  and  such  a  one  as  could  not 
have  well  existed  heretofore."  ***** 

Alluding  to  our  revolutionary  ancestors,  he  says  : 

"  In  history  we  hope  they  will  be  read  of,  and  recounted,  so  long  as 
the  Bible  shall  be  read.  But  even  granting  that  they  will,  their  influence 
can  not  be  what  it  heretofore  has  been.  Even  then,  they  can  not  be  so  uni 
versally  known,  nor  so  vividly  felt,  as  they  were  by  the  generation  just 
gone  to  rest.  At  the  close  of  that  struggle,  nearly  every  adult  male  had 
been  a  participator  in  some  of  its  scenes.  The  consequence  was,  that  of 
those  scenes,  in  the  form  of  a  husband,  a  father,  a  son,  or  a  brother,  a 
living  history  was  to  be  found  in  every  family — a  history  bearing  the  indu 
bitable  testimonies  to  its  own  authenticity,  in  the  limbs  mangled,  in  the 
scars  of  wounds  received  in  the  midst  of  the  very  scenes  related  ;  a  history, 
too,  that  could  be  read  and  understood  alike  by  all,  the  wise  and  the  igno 
rant,  the  learned  and  the  unlearned.  But  those  histories  are  gone.  They 
can  be  read  no  more  forever.  They  were  a  fortress  of  strength  ;  but 
what  the  invading  foemen  could  never  do,  the  silent  artillery  of  time  has 
done — the  leveling  of  its  walls.  They  are  gone.  They  were  a  forest  of 
giant  oaks  ;  but  the  resistless  hurricane  has  swept  over  them,  and  left 
only,  here  and  there  a  lonely  trunk,  despoiled  of  its  verdure,  shorn  of  its 
foliage  ;  unshading  and  unshaded,  to  murmur  in  a  few  more  gentle 
breezes,  and  to  combat  with  its  mutilated  limbs  a  few  more  ruder- 
storms,  then  to  sink  and  be  no  more." 


MISCELLANEOUS  SPEECHES  AND  MARRIAGE.       65 

The  figure  of  the  "  forest  of  giant  oaks,"  and  the  effects 
upon  it  of  time  and  tempest  is  a  very  striking  one.  That  is 
also  a  curious  passage  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  ambitious 
man,  who  will  seek  glory  and  distinction,  and  who  will  have 
it  by  "  the  emancipating  of  slaves"  or  "enslaving  freemen. " 
Was  that  intense  ambition  of  his,  of  which  there  exists  so 
many  evidences,  and  that  mysterious  presentiment  that  in 
some  unknown  way  he  was  to  be  the  deliverer  of  the  slaves,, 
the  inspiration  of  the  language  quoted  ? 

There  is  another  very  remarkable  speech  of  his,  made  in 
the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  in  December, 
1839,  in  reply  to  Douglas,  Lamborn,  and  Calhoun.1  A  joint 
discussion  was  arranged  between  the  democratic  and  whig 
parties.  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  John  Calhoun,  Josiah  Lam- 
born,  and  Jesse  B.  Thomas  spoke  for  the  democrats,  and 
Stephen  T.  Logan,  Edward  D.  Baker,  Orville  H.  Browning,, 
and  Lincoln  for  the  whigs.  It  was  continued  from  evening^ 
to  evening,  an  advocate  of  each  party  speaking  alternately,, 
until  Lincoln's  turn  came  to  close  the  discussion.  In  reply 
to  Mr.  Lamborn,  who  taunted  the  opponents  of  Van  Buren 
with  the  hopelessness  of  their  struggle,  Lincoln  exclaimed: 

"Address  that  argument  to  cowards,  and  knaves.  With  the  free  and 
the  brave  it  will  effect  nothing.  It  may  be  true;  if  it  must,  let  it.  Many 
free  countries  have  lost  their  liberties,  and  ours  may  lose  hers,  but  if  she 
shall,  let  it  be  my  proudest  plume,  not  that  I  was  the  last  to  desert,  but 
that  I  never  deserted  her." 

Alluding  to  the  denunciation  and  persecution  heaped 
upon  those  who  opposed  the  administration,  he  says:  "  Bow 
to  it  I  never  will,"  and  then  in  a  prophetic  spirit,  with  impass 
ioned  eloquence,  he  dedicated  himself  to  the  cause  of  his 
country: 

"  Here,  before  Heaven,  and  in  the  face  of  the  world,  I  swear  eternal 
fidelity  to  the  just  cause  of  the  land  of  my  life,  my  liberty,  and  my  love." 
*  *  #  "  The  cause  approved  of  our  judgment  and  our  hearts,  in 
disaster,  in  chains,  in  death,  we  never  faltered  in  defending." 

On  the  22d  of  February,  1842,  he  delivered  before  the 
Washingtonian  Temperance  Society,  at  Springfield,  an 

1.  See  Weekly  Journal,  at  Springfield. 

5 


66  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

address  upon  temperance.  It  is  calm,  earnest,  judicious,  and 
it  is  difficult  to  find  anywhere  the  subject  treated  with  more 
ability,1  or  with  a  finer  spirit.  "  When,"  says  he,  "  the  victory 
shall  be  complete,  when  there  shall  be  neither  a  slave  nor  a 
drunkard  on  the  earth,  how  proud  the  title  of  that  land 
which  may  claim  to  be  the  birth-place  and  cradle  of  those 
resolutions  that  shall  have  ended  in  that  victory."  He  was 
already  dreaming,  it  would  seem,  of  the  time  when  there 
should  be  no  slave  in  the  republic. 

Wishing  to  devote  his  time  exclusively  to  his  profession, 
he  did  not,  as  has  already  been  stated,  seek  in  1840  re-elec 
tion  to  the  Legislature.  He  had  been  associated  as  partner 
with  one  of  the  most  prominent  lawyers  at  the  capital  of  the 
state,  and  he  himself  was  the  leader  of  his  party,  and  alto 
gether  the  most  popular  man  in  Central  Illinois.  In  August, 
1837,  Stuart,  his  partner,  was  elected  to  Congress  over 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  after  one  of  the  severest  contests  which 
ever  occurred  in  the  state.  The  district  then  extended  from 
Springfield  to  Chicago,  and  embraced  nearly  all  the  northern 
part  of  Illinois.  Stuart  was  re-elected  in  1839.  Their  part 
nership  terminated  on  the  i4th  day  of  April,  1841,  and  on 
the  same  day  Lincoln  entered  into  a  new  partnership  with 
Judge  Stephen  T.  Logan,  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  suc 
cessful  lawyers  of  the  state,  and  at  that  time  universally 
recognized  as  at  the  head  of  the  bar  at  the  capital. 

In  1840,  Lincoln  was  on  the  "Whig  Electoral  Ticket,"  as 
candidate  for  state  presidential  elector.  This  was  the  presi 
dential  canvass  known  as  the  "Log Cabin  "  campaign,  which 
resulted  in  the  election  of  General  Harrison.  It  was  one  of 
the  most  exciting  since  the  organization  of  the  government. 
Log  cabins  for  political  meetings,  with  the  traditional  gourd 
in  place  of  the  mug  for  cider,  hanging  on  one  side  of  the 
door,  and  the  coon-skin  nailed  to  the  logs  on  the  other, 
sprang  up  like  magic,  not  only  on  the  frontier  and  over  all 
the  West,  but  in  every  city,  town,  village  and  hamlet  at  the 

1.  Published  lu  the  Springfield  Journal^  and  re-published  in  full  in  the  Lincoln 
Memorial  Album,  pp.  84-97. 


MISCELLANEOUS  SPEECHES  AND  MARRIAGE.       67 

East.  Lincoln  entered  into  the  contest  with  great  ardor,  and 
"  stumped  "  the  state  for  his  party,  and  in  many  parts  of  it 
he  and  Douglas  held  joint  political  discussions.  In  this  way 
they  traveled,  the  large  circuit  of  Judge  Treat,  speaking 
together  at  every  county  seat  in  the  circuit.  (^/ 

A  great  whig  meeting  was  held  at  the  capital  in  June,  to 
which  the  people  came  in  throngs  from  every  part  of  Illinois. 
Chicago  sent  a  large  delegation,  which  brought  as  a  repre 
sentative  of  the  commercial  capital,  a  full  rigged  ship  on 
wheels.  The  delegation  were  supplied  with  tents  and  pro 
visions,  and  plenty  of  cider,  and  at  night,  camped  out  like 
an  army  on  the  prairies.  Their  camp-fires  illuminated  the 
groves,  and  their  campaign  songs  echoed  and  resounded  all 
the  way  from  Lake  Michigan  to  the  Illinois  and  the  Sanga- 
mon.  At  this  great  meeting,  all  the  leading  whig  orators 
spoke.  Among  them  were  Lincoln,  Baker,  and  Logan,  of 
Springfield;  Hardin,  of  Morgan;  Browning,  of  Quincy,  and 
Butterfield  and  Lisle  Smith,  of  Chicago.  For  argument 
and  apt  illustration,  the  palm  was  generally  given  to  Lincoln, 
but  he  himself  said  that  no  one  could  be  compared  to  a 
young  lawyer  from  Chicago,  whose  name  was  Lisle  Smith.1 

It  was  during  the  canvass  of  1840  that  Lincoln  protected 
Baker  from  a  mob  which  threatened  to  drag  him  off  the 
stand.  Baker  was  speaking  in  a  large  room,  rented  and  used 
for  the  court  sessions,  and  Lincoln's  office  was  in  an  apart 
ment  over  the  court  room,  and  communicating  with  it  by  a 
trap-door.  Lincoln  was  in  his  office,  listening  to  Baker 
through  the  open  trap-door,  when  Baker,  becoming  excited, 
abused  the  democrats,  many  of  whom  were  present.  A  cry 
was  raised,  "  Pull  him  off  the  stand  ! "  The  instant  Lincoln 
heard  the  cry,  knowing  a  general  fight  was  imminent,  his 
athletic  form  was  seen  descending  from  above  through  the 

1.  This  young  man  died  in  early  life.  I  have  heard  the  silver-tongued  Baker, 
the  vehement,  passionate,  and  tempestuous  Lovejoy,the  great  actor  Clay,  the  majestic 
Webster,  but  within  &  certain  narrow  range,  I  never  heard  the  equal  of  Smith .  At  a 
public  dinner  speech,  a  commemorative  oration,  or  an  eulogy,  he  was  unequaled.  For 
a  union  of  music  and  poetry,  beauty  of  language,  and  felicity  of  illustration,  I  have 
never  heard  his  equal. 


68  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

opening  of  the  trap-door,  and  springing  to  the  side  of  Baker, 
and  waving  his  hand  for  silence,  he  said  with  dignity: 
"  Gentlemen,  let  us  not  disgrace  the  age  and  country  in 
which  we  live.  This  is  a  land  where  freedom  of  speech  is 
guaranteed.  Baker  has  a  right  to  speak,  and  a  right  to  be 
permitted  to  do  so.  I  am  here  to  protect  him,  and  no  man 
shall  take  him  from  this  stand  if  I  can  prevent  it."  Quiet 
was  restored,  and  Baker  finished  his  speech  without  further 
interruption. 

In  1839,  Miss  Mary  Todd  came  from  Lexington,  Ken 
tucky,  to  Springfield,  on  a  visit  to  her  sister,  Mrs.  Ninian 
W.  Edwards,  who  was  the  daughter  of  the  Hon.  Robert  S. 
Todd,  of  Kentucky.  In  1778,  John  Todd,  the  great-uncle 
of  Mary  Todd,  accompanied  General  George  Rogers  Clark 
to  Illinois,  and  was  present  at  the  capture  of  Kaskaskia  and 
Vincennes.1  On  the  i2th  of  December,  1778,  he  was 
appointed  by  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  Patrick  Henry, 
County  Lieutenant,  or  commandant  of  the  county  of  Illinois, 
in  the  state  of  Virginia.  In  1779,  John  Todd  arrived  at 
Kaskaskia  and  organized  civil  government  under  the  author 
ity  of  Virginia.2  It  is  a  curious  and  interesting  fact  that  the 
great-uncle  of  Mary  Todd,  afterwards  wife  of  President  Lin 
coln,  should,  in  1779,  have  been  acting  Governor  of  Illinois. 
He  may  be  justly  regarded  as  the  founder  of  the  state,  a 
pioneer  of  progress,  education,  and  liberty.3  He  was  killed 
at  the  battle  of  Blue  Licks,  on  the  i8th  of  August,  1782. 
His  two  brothers,  Levi  and  Robert,  settled  in  Lexington, 
Kentucky.  Levi  was  the  grandfather  of  Mary  Todd,  after 
wards  Mrs.  Lincoln,  and  he  was  the  only  field  officer  at  the 
battle  of  Blue  Licks  who  was  not  killed.4  Such  was  the  family 

1.  Manuscript  Letter  of  Ninian  W.  Edwards,  also  "Illinois  in  the  Eighteenth 
Century,  "by  Edward  G.  Mason— a  paper  read  before  the  Chicago  Historical  Society. 

2.  See  the  manuscript  "Records  of  the  County  of  Illinois,"  with  Todd's  appoint 
ment,  in  the  Chicago  Historical  Society. 

3.  The  original  records  of  his  administration,  in  manuscript,  were  presented  to 
the  Chicago  Historical  Society  by  Edward  G.  Mason. 

4.  Manuscript  Letter  of  Ninian  W.  Edwards.    Col.  John  Todd  pre-empted  a  large 
tract  of  land  in  and  near  the  present  city  of  Lexington.    While   encamped   on  its  site 
he  heard  of  the  battle  of  Lexington,  in  the  far  East,  "  and  named  his  infant  settlement 
in  its  honor." 


MISCELLANEOUS  SPEECHES  AND  MARRIAGE        69 

and  lineage  of  Mary  Todd.  When  she  came  to  visit  her 
sister  she  was  twenty-one  years  of  age.  Her  mother  died 
when  she  was  a  child,  and  she  had  been  educated  and  well 
taught  at  a  boarding  school  for  young  ladies  at  Lexington. 
She  was  intelligent  and  bright,  full  of  life  and  animation, 
with  ready  wit,  and  quick  at  repartee  and  satire.  Her  eyes 
were  a  grayish  blue,  her  hair  abundant,  and  dark  brown  in 
color.  She  was  a  brunette,  with  a  rosy  tinge  in  her  cheeks, 
of  medium  height,  and  form  rather  full  and  round. 

The  Edwards  and  the  Stuarts  were  among  the  leading 
families  in  social  life  at  the  capital.  Ninian  W.  Edwards 
was  a  lawyer  of  distinction.  His  father  had  been  Chief 
Justice  of  Kentucky,  and  was  the  first  Governor  of  the  Ter 
ritory  of  Illinois,  holding  the  position  from  1809  to  1818. 
He  was  the  first  senator  from  Illinois  after  its  admission  into 
the  Union,  and  afterwards  Governor  of  the  State. 

When  Miss  Todd  came  to  Springfield,  nearly  all  ambitious 
young  men  sought  distinction  at  the  bar  and  in  public  life. 
Young  ladies  sympathized  with  this  ambition  to  an  extent 
scarcely  appreciated  at  the  present  day.  This  young  Lex 
ington  belle  was  very  ambitious,  and  is  said  to  have  declared 
on  leaving  Kentucky  that  she  meant  to  marry  some  one  who 
would  be  President.  On  her  arrival  at  Springfield  she  met 
in  Lincoln  a  man  of  bright  political  prospects,  already 
popular,  and  the  leader  of  his  party;  one  who  was  regarded 
by  her  relations  and  connections  as  an  intellectual  prodigy.1 
Lincoln,  who  had  had  his  fancies,  and  his  romantic  passion 
for  Anne  Rutledge,  now  became  the  suitor  of  Miss  Todd. 
His  courtship  was  distinguished  with  the  somewhat  novel 
incident  of  a  challenge  to  fight  a  duel. 

At  this  time  there  was  living  at  Springfield,  James  Shields, 
a  gallant  hot-headed  bachelor,  from  Tyrone  County,  Ireland. 

1.  It  is  noteworthy  that  those  who  heard  Lincoln  talk,  even  at  that  early  day, 
were  impressed  with  his  ability.  I  have  heard  old  settlers  in  Springfield  say,  "  every 
lady  wanted  to  get  near  Lincoln  to  hear  him  talk  "  An  old  gentleman  told  me  that 
when  dining  one  day  at  the  same  table  with  Miss  Todd  and  Lincoln,  he  said  to  her 
after  dinner,  half  In  jest  and  half  in  earnest:  "  Mary,  I  have  heard  that  you  have  said 
you  want  to  marry  a  man  who  will  be  President.  If  so,  Abe  Lincoln  is  your  man." 


70  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Like  most  of  his  countrymen,  he  was  an  ardent  democrat, 
and  he  was  also  a  great  be-au  in  society.  He  had  been  so 
fortunate  as  to  be  elected  Auditor  of  the  State.  Miss  Todd, 
full  of  spirit,  very  gay,  and  a  little  wild  and  mischievous, 
published  in  the  "  Sangamon  Journal,"  under  the  name  of 
"Aunt  Rebecca,  or  the  Lost  Townships,"  some  amusing  satir 
ical  papers,  ridiculing  the  susceptible  and  sensitive  Irishman. 
Indeed  Shields  was  so  sensitive  he  could  not  bear  ridicule, 
and  would  much  rather  die  than  be  laughed  at.  On  seeing 
the  papers,  he  went  at  once  to  Francis,  the  editor,  and  furi 
ously  demanded  the  name  of  the  author,  declaring  that 
unless  the  name  of  the  writer  was  given  he  would  hold  the 
editor  personally  responsible.  Francis  was  a  large  broad  man, 
and  Shields  was  very  thin,  and  slim,  and  the  editor  realized 
that  with  his  great  bulk  it  would  be  very  unsafe  for  him  to 
stand  in  front  of  Shields'  pistol.  He  had  plenty  of  stomach, 
but  none  for  such  a  fight.  He  was  a  warm  personal  and 
political  friend  of  Lincoln,  and  knowing  the  relations  be 
tween  him  and  Miss  Todd,  in  this  dilemma  he  disclosed  the 
facts  to  Lincoln,  and  asked  his  advice  and  counsel.  He  was 
not  willing  to  expose  the  lady's  name,  and  yet  was 
extremely  reluctant  himself  to  meet  the  fiery  Irishman  on 
the  field.  Lincoln  at  once  told  Francis  to  tell  Shields  to 
regard  him  as  the  author. 

The  Tazewell  Circuit  Court,  at  which  he  had  several  cases 
of  importance  to  try,  being  in  session,  Lincoln  departed  for 
Tremont,  the  county  seat.  As  soon  as  Francis  had  notified 
Shields  that  Lincoln  was  the  author  of  the  papers,  he  and  his 
second,  General  Whitesides,  started  in  hot  pursuit  of  Lincoln. 
Hearing  of  this,  Dr.  Merryman,  and  Lincoln's  oid  friend 
Butler,  started  also  for  Tremont,  "to  prevent,"  as  Merryman 
said,  "any  advantage  being  taken  of  Lincoln,  either  as  to 
his  honor,  or  his  life."  They  passed  the  belligerent  Shields 
and  Whitesides  in  the  night,  and  arrived  at  Tremont  in 
advance.  They  told  Lincoln  what  was  coming,  and  he  replied, 
that  he  was  altogether  opposed  to  duelling,  and  would  do 
anything  to  avoid  it  that  would  not  degrade  him  in  the  es- 


MISCELLANEOUS  SPEECHES  AND  MARRIAGE.       71 

timation  of  himself  and  of  his  friends,  but  if  a  fight  were  the 
only  alternative  of  such  degradation  he  would  fight. 

In  the  meanwhile,  the  young  lady,  having  heard  of  the 
demand  that  Shields  had  made,  wrote  another  letter  in  which 
she  said:  "  I  hear  the  way  of  these  fire-eaters  is  to  give  the 
challenged  party  the  choice  of  weapons,  which  being  the 
case,  I'll  tell  you  in  confidence,  that  I  never  fight  with  any 
thing  but  broomsticks,  or  hot  water,  or  a  shovelful  of  coals, 
the  former  of  which  being  somewhat  like  a  shillala,  may  not 
be  objectionable  to  him."  This  spirited  and  indiscreet  young 
Kentucky  girl,  brought  up  where  duelling  was  very  common 
and  popular,  would  undoubtedly  have  had  the  courage  her 
self  to  meet  the  Irishman,  with  the  usual  weapon,  the  pistol, 
and,  if  public  opinion  had  sanctioned  it,  would  have  enjoyed 
the  excitement  of  the  meeting. 

While  this  badinage  was  going  on,  Shields  had  challenged 
Lincoln,  and  the  challenge  had  been  accepted.  The  weap 
ons  were  to  have  been  cavalry  broad  swords  of  the  largest 
size,  and  the  place  of  meeting  was  to  have  been  on  the  west 
bank  of  the  Mississippi,  within  three  miles  of  Alton.  The 
principals,  and  their  seconds  and  surgeons,  started  for  the 
place  of  meeting.  As  they  approached  the  river,  they  were 
joined  by  Colonel  Hardin  and  others,  who  sought  to  bring 
about  a  reconciliation.  Hostilities  were  suspended.  Shields  was 
induced  to  withdraw  the  challenge,  and  satisfactory  explana 
tions  were  made.  Lincoln  declared  that  the  obnoxious  arti 
cles  were  written  "  solely  for  political  effect,"  and  with  "  no 
intention  of  injuring  the  personal  or  private  character  of 
Shields,"  and  so  the  parties  returned  reconciled.  It  is  quite 
clear  that  no  tragedy  was  intended  by  Lincoln.  With  very 
heavy  broad  swords,  under  the  conditions  of  this  meeting, 
Shields,  who  was  a  comparatively  weak  man,  could  not  have 
injured  Lincoln,  and  Lincoln  would  not  have  injured  Shields. 
If  the  meeting  had  taken  place,  however,  nothing  but  a  trag 
edy  could  have  prevented  its  being  a  farce. 

The  romance  of  fighting  for  the  lady  to  whom  he  was 
making  love,  probably  deepened  Lincoln's  devotion,  and  the 


72  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

chivalry  and  courage  of  Lincoln  in  so  promptly  stepping 
forward  as  her  champion,  could  not  but  increase  Miss  Todd's 
admiration  for  and  attachment  to  him,  and  their  union  soon 
followed.  The  hostile  correspondence  took  place  late  in 
September,  1842,  and,  on  the  4th  of  November  thereafter, 
Lincoln  and  Miss  Todd  were  married.  Neither  before  nor 
after  the  challenge,  had  Lincoln  any  u-nkind  feelings  towards 
Shields,  and  later,  during  the  war  of  the  rebellion,  Shields 
having  proved  himself  a  brave  soldier  in  the  war  against 
Mexico,  the  President  gave  him  an  important  military,  com 
mand. 

After  their  marriage,  Lincoln  and  his  wife  went  to  live 
in  pleasant  rooms,  in  a  very  comfortable  hotel,  called  the 
"  Globe  Tavern,"  kept  by  Mrs.  Bede,  and  about  two  hun 
dred  yards  southwest  of  the  old  "  State  House,"  paying  four 
dollars  a  week  only  for  board  and  rooms.  On  one  occasion 
shortly  after  her  marriage,  Mrs.  Lincoln,  speaking  of  a  friend 
who  had  married  an  old  but  very  rich  man,  said  :  "  I  would 
rather  marry  a  good  man,  a  man  of  mind,  with  bright  pros 
pects  for  success,  and  power,  and  fame,  than  all  the  horses, 
and  houses,  and  gold  in  the  world."  In  1844,  Mr.  Lincoln 
purchased  of  the  Rev.  Nathan  Dresser,  a  small  but  com 
fortable  house,  in  which  he  lived  until  his  election  as  Presi 
dent,  and  his  removal  to  Washington. 

There  are  few  Congressional  districts  in  the  republic 
which  have  been  represented  by  such  a  succession  of  distin 
guished  men,  as  those  who  represented  the  Sangamon  district 
from  1839  to  1850  ;  beginning  with  John  T.  Stuart,  who  was 
in  1839  elected  over  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  and  served  until 
March,  1843.  In  1842,  three  very  prominent  men  were  the 
whig  candidates,  Lincoln,  Edward  D.  Baker,  and  John  J. 
Hardin.  Baker  carried  the  delegation  from  Sangamon 
County,  and  Lincoln  was  one  of  the  delegates  to  the  Con 
gressional  Convention,  and  was  instructed  to  vote  for  Baker. 
He  took  his  defeat  with  good  humor,  saying,  when  he  tried  to 
nominate  Baker  :  "  I  shall  be  fixed  a  good  deal  like  the  fellow 


MISCELLANEOUS  SPEECHES  AND  MARRIAGE.       73 

who  is  made  groomsman  to  the  man  who  cut  him  out,  and 
is  marrying  his  own  girl."  1  On  this  occasion  Hardin,  of 
Morgan  County,  was  nominated  and  elected.  In  1843, 
Baker  was  nominated  and  elected,  and,  in  1846,  Lincoln  was 
elected.  Of  these  four  members  of  Congress,  Stuart  alone 
survives,  at  the  age  of  seventy-five  years.  The  others  all 
died  by  violence.  Hardin  was  shot  on  the  field  of  Buena 
Vista.  Baker  received  a  volley  of  bullets  as  he  was  leading 
his  troops  at  Ball's  Bluff,  in  Virginia,  and  Lincoln  was  assas 
sinated. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  opponent  on  the  democratic  ticket  for 
Congress,  was  the  celebrated  Methodist  circuit  preacher, 
Peter  Cartwright.  The  democrats  supposed  that  the  back 
woods  preacher  would  "  run  "  far  ahead  of  his  ticket,  and 
might  beat  Lincoln.  But  it  fell  otherwise  ;  the  "  Sangamon 
Chief,"  as  he  was  sometimes  called,  receiving  a  majority  of 
sixteen  hundred  and  eleven,  a  vote  considerably  greater 
than  his  party  strength. 

In  1844,  in  the  presidential  contest  between  Clay  and 
Polk,  Lincoln,  who  had  admired  Clay  from  boyhood,  was 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  electoral  ticket,  and  canvassed  with 
great  zeal  and  ability,  Illinois,  and  a  part  of  Indiana  for  his 
favorite.  In  this  campaign  he  again  met  the  leaders  of  the 
democratic  party,  and  especially  Douglas,  and  added  to  his 
reputation  as  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  popular  speakers 
of  the  Northwest.  His  chagrin  and  disappointment  at  the 
election  of  Polk  was  very  great. 

The  partnership  between  Judge  Logan  and  Lincoln  was, 
on  the  2oth  day  of  September,  1843,  dissolved,  and  on  the 
same  day  he  formed  a  partnership  with  a  young  lawyer, 
William  H.  Herndon,  a  relative  of  one  of  his  old  Clary 

1.  Of  Colonel  Baker,  the  following  incredible,  but  characteristic  anecdote  was 
current  around  the  mess-table  of  the  early  circuit-riders  and  judges  of  Central  Illi 
nois.  Soon  after  he  settled  in  Springfield,  a  friend  found  him  in  the  woods,  seated  on  a 
fallen  tree,  weeping  bitterly.  On  being  pressed  to  tell  the  cause  of  his  grief,  he 
said  :  "  I  have  been  reading  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  I  find  a  provis 
ion  that  none  but  native  citizens  can  be  President.  I  was  born  in  England,  and  am 
Ineligible." 


74  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Grove  friends,  which  partnership  continued  until  his  election 
as  President. 

A  very  amusing  illustration  of  Lincoln's  power  to  enter 
tain  in  conversation  was  given  the  author  by  the  late  Judge 
Peck.1  In  June,  1842,  the  year  after  Martin  Van  Buren 
had  left  the  presidential  office,  he  and  the  late  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  Mr.  Paulding,  made  a  journey  to  the  West,  and 
visited  Illinois.  The  party  on  their  way  to  the  capital  were 
delayed  by  bad  roads,  and  compelled  to  spend  the  night  at 
Rochester,  some  miles  from  Springfield.  The  accommoda 
tions  at  this  place  were  very  poor,  and  a  few  of  the  ex-Presi 
dent's  Springfield  friends,  taking  some  refreshments,  went 
out  to  meet  him,  and  try  and  aid  in  entertaining  him. 
Knowing  Lincoln's  ability  as  a  talker  and  narrator  of  anec 
dotes,  they  begged  him  to  go  with  them,  and  aid  in  making 
their  guest  at  the  country  inn  pass  the  evening  as  pleas 
antly  as  possible.  Lincoln,  with  his  usual  good  nature, 
went  with  them,  and,  on  their  arrival,  entertained  the  party 
for  hours  with  graphic  descriptions  of  Western  life,  bar 
anecdotes,  and  witty  stories.  Judge  Peck,  who  was  of  the 
party,  and  then  a  democrat,  and  a  warm  friend  of  the  ex- 
President,  says  that  Lincoln  was  at  his  best,  and  adds:  "I 
never  passed  a  more  joyous  night."  There  was  a  constant 
succession  of  brilliant  anecdotes  and  funny  stories,  accom 
panied  by  loud  laughter  in  which  Van  Buren  bore  his  full 
share.  "  He  also,"  says  the  Judge,  "gave  us  incidents  and 
anecdotes  of  Elisha  Williams,  and  other  leading  members  of 
the  New  York  Bar,  and  going  back  to  the  days  of  Hamilton 
and  Burr — altogether  there  was  a  right  merry  time,  and 
Mr.  Van  Buren  said  the  only  drawback  upon  his  enjoyment 
was  that  his  sides  were  sore  from  laughing  at  Lincoln's 
stories  for  a  week  thereafter." 

1.  See  also  to  the  same  effect  the  statement  of  the  Hon.  Joseph  Gillespie,  in  the 
Lincoln  Memorial  Album,  p.  461.  "As  a  boon  companion,"  says  Judge  Gillespie, 
"  Lincoln,  though  he  never  drank  a  drop  of  liquor,  nor  used  tobacco  in  any  form  in  his. 
life,  was  without  a  rival." 


MISCELLANEOUS  SPEECHES  AND  MARRIAGE. 


75 


During  Lincoln's  administration,  John  Van  Buren,  son 
of  President  Van  Buren,  and  distinguished  alike  for  his  bril 
liant  wit  and  his  eloquence,  visited  Washington,  and,  dining 
with  the  President,  the  latter  recalled  and  described  to  the 
son,  the  night  which  Van  Buren  and  he  had  passed  so  pleas 
antly  at  the  country  inn  on  the  prairies  of  Illinois. 


CHAPTER  V. 

CONGRESS  AND  THE  BAR. 

LINCOLN  TAKES  His  SEAT  IN  CONGRESS. —  His  COLLEAGUES  AND 
ASSOCIATES. —  How  HE  IMPRESSED  THEM. —  His  FIRST  SPEECH. — 
SPEECH  ON  THE  MEXICAN  WAR. —  DELEGATE  TO  NATIONAL  CON 
VENTION. —  His  CAMPAIGN  SPEECH. —  INTRODUCES  BILL  TO  ABOL 
ISH  SLAVERY  IN  DISTRICT  OF  COLUMBIA. —  SEEKS  APPOINTMENT  AS 
COMMISSIONER  OF  LAND  OFFICE. —  DECLINES  TO  BE  GOVERNOR  OF 
OREGON. —  AT  THE  BAR. —  DEFENDS  BILL  ARMSTRONG. —  LINCOLN 
AS  AN  ADVOCATE,  LAWYER  AND  ORATOR. 

IN  December,  1847,  Lincoln  took  his  seat  in  Congress 
(the  3oth)  the  only  whig  member  from  Illinois.  His  great 
rival,  Douglas,  had  already  run  a  brilliant  career  in  the 
House,  and  now  for  the  first  time  had  become  a  member  of 
the  United  States  Senate.  These  two  had  met  at  Vandalia, 
and  in  the  Illinois  Legislature  had  always  been  rivals,  and 
each  was  now  the  acknowledged  leader  of  his  party.  The 
democratic  party  had,  since  the  year  1836,  been  strongly  in 
the  majority,  and  Douglas  in  his  state,  more  than  any  other 
man,  directed  and  controlled  it.  Among  Lincoln's  colleagues 
in  Congress  from  Illinois,  were  John  Wentworth,  John  A. 
McClernand  and  William  A.  Richardson.  This  Congress 
had  among  its  members  many  very  distinguished  men. 
Among  them  were  ex-President  John  Quincy  Adams  ;  George 
Ashmun,  who  presided  over  the  convention  which  nominated 
Lincoln  for  President;  Caleb  B.  Smith,  a  member  of  his  cab 
inet  ;  John  G.  Palfrey,  the  historian  of  New  England  ;  Rob 
ert  C.  Winthrop,  speaker  ;  Jacob  Collamer,  postmaster-gen- 

76 


CONGRESS  AND  THE  BAR.  77 

eral ;  Andrew  Johnson,  elected  Vice-President  with  Lincoln 
on  his  second  election  ;  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Vice-Presi 
dent  of  the  Confederacy;  besides  Toombs,  Rhett,  Cobb,  and 
other  prominent  leaders  in  the  rebellion. 

In  the  Senate  were  Daniel  Webster,  John  P.  Hale,  John 
A.  Dix,  Simon  Cameron,  Lewis  Cass,  Thomas  H.  Benton, 
John  J.  Crittenden,  Mason  and  Hunter  from  Virginia,  John 
C.  Calhoun,  and  Jefferson  Davis.  Lincoln  entered  Congress 
as  the  leader  of  the  whig  party  in  Illinois,  and  with  the  rep 
utation  of  being  an  able  and  effective  popular  speaker.  It 
is  curious  to  learn  the  impression  which  this  prairie  orator, 
with  no  college  culture,  made  upon  his  associates.  Robert 
C.  Winthrop,  a  scholarly  and  conservative  man,  representing 
the  intelligence  of  Boston,  says,  when  writing  thirty-four 
years  thereafter  :  "  I  recall  vividly  the  impressions  I  then 
formed,  both  of  his  ability  and  amiability.  We  were  old 
whigs  together,  and  agreed  entirely  upon  all  questions  of 
public  interest.  I  could  not  always  concur  in  the  policy  of 
the  party  which  made  him  President,  but  I  never  lost  my 
personal  regard  for  him.  For  shrewdness  and  sagacity,  and 
keen  practical  sense,  he  has  had  no  superior  in  our  day  and 
generation."  1 

The  vice-president  of  the  Confederacy,  Alexander  H. 
Stephens,  writing  seventeen  years  after  Lincoln's  death,  and 
recalling  their  service  together  in  Congress,  from  1847  to 
1849,  says  : 

"  I  knew  Mr.  Lincoln  well  and  intimately,  and  we  were  both  ardent 
supporters  of  General  Taylor  for  President  in  1848.  Mr.  Lincoln, 
Toombs,  Preston,  myself  and  others,  formed  the  first  Congressional  Tay 
lor  club,  known  as  '  The  Young  Indians,'  and  organized  the  Taylor 
movement,  which  resulted  in  his  nomination."  *  *  * 

"  Mr.  Lincoln  was  careful  as  to  his  manners,  awkward  in  his 
speech,  but  was  possessed  of  a  very  strong,  clear,  vigorous  mind."  * 

*  *  "  He  always  attracted  and  riveted  the  attention  of  the 
House  when  he  spoke.  His  manner  of  speech  as  well  as  thought  was 
original.  He  had  no  model.  He  was  a  man  of  strong  convictions,  and 
what  Carlyle  would  have  called  an  earnest  man.  He  abounded  in  anec- 

1.  The  Lincoln  Memorial  Album,  p.  165. 


78  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

dote.  He  illustrated  everything  he  was  talking  about  by  an  anecdote, 
always  exceedingly  apt  and  pointed,  and  socially  he  always  kept  his 
company  in  a  roar  of  laughter."  l 

From  the  time  they  parted  as  members  of  the  Taylor 
Club,  until  the  Hampton  Roads  Conference  in  1865,  of 
which  hereafter,  these  two  remarkable  men  did  not  again 
meet. 

Lincoln  took  a  more  prominent  part  in  the  debates  than 
is  usual  for  new  members.  On  the  8th  of  January,  1848, 
writing  to  his  young  partner,  Herndon,  he  says:  "  By  way 
of  experiment,  and  of  getting  *  the  hang  of  the  house,'  I 
made  a  little  speech  two  or  three  days  ago  on  a  post-office 
question  of  no  general  interest."  (He  was  second  on  the 
Committee  of  Post-offices  and  Post  Roads.)  "I  find  speak 
ing  here  and  elsewhere  almost  the  same  thing.  I  was  about 
as  badly  scared,  and  no  more  than  when  I  speak  in  court." 
Writing  to  his  partner  again  soon  after,  he  gave  the  young 
gentleman  some  very  good  advice.  "  The  way  for  a  young 
man  to  rise,"  said  he,  "  is  to  improve  himself  every  way  he 
can,  never  suspecting  anybody  wishes  to  hinder  him.  Allow 
me  to  assure  you  that  suspicions  and  jealousy  never  did  help 
any  man  in  any  station."  And  it  may  be  truthfully  added, 
as  will  hereafter  appear,  that  no  man  was  ever  more  free 
from  these  faults  than  Lincoln. 

On  the  1 2th  of  January,  1848,  he  made  an  able  and 
elaborate  speech  on  the  Mexican  war,  which  established  his 
reputation  in  Congress  as  an  able  debater.  Douglas,  long 
afterwards,  in  their  joint  debate  at  Ottawa,  charged  him  with 
taking  the  side  of  the  enemy  against  his  own  country  in  this 
Mexican  war.  To  which  Lincoln  replied:  "  I  was  an  old 
whig,  and  whenever  the  democratic  party  tried  to  get  me 
to  vote  that  the  war  had  been  righteously  begun  by  the 
President,  I  would  not  do  it.  But  when  they  asked  money, 
or  land  warrants,  or  anything  to  pay  the  soldiers,  I  gave 
the  same  vote  that  Douglas  did."  2 

1.  Lincoln  Memorial  Album,  p.  241. 

2.  Lincoln  and  Douglas  debates. 


CONGRESS  AND  THE  BAR.  79 

He  had  offered  resolutions  calling  on  the  President,  Mr. 
Polk,  for  a  statement  of  facts  respecting  the  beginning  of 
this  war,  and  speaking  to  these  resolutions  said: 

"  Let  him  answer,  fully,  fairly,  and  candidly.  Let  him  remember  he 
sits  where  Washington  sat,  and  so  remembering  let  him  answer  as  Wash 
ington  would  answer."  *  * 

"But  if  the  President,"  he  said,  "trusting  to  escape  scrutiny  by 
fixing  the  public  gaze  upon  the  exceeding  brightness  of  military  glory, 
that  attractive  rainbow  that  rises  in  showers  of  blood,  that  serpent's  eye 
that  charms  to  destroy,  plunged  into  it  (the  war)  and  was  swept  on  and 
on  till  disappointed  in  the  ease  with  which  Mexico  might  be  enslaved, 
he  now  finds  himself  he  knows  not  where." 

On  the  2yth  of  July,  after  he  had,  as  a  delegate  from 
Illinois,  aided  to  nominate  General  Taylor  for  President, 
Lincoln  made  what  is  called  a  campaign  speech  to  promote 
his  election  against  Cass,  the  democratic  candidate.  For 
that  purpose  the  speech  was  very  effective.  It  is  full  of 
satire,  sarcasm,  and  wit;  some  of  it  rather  coarse,  but  it  was 
designed  to  reach  and  influence  a  class  of  voters  by  whom 
coarse  and  keen  illustrations  would  be  appreciated.  The 
following  extract  will  exhibit  its  characteristics: 

' '  But  in  my  hurry  I  was  very  near  closing  on  the  subject  of  military 
coat-tails  before  I  was  done  with  it.  There  is  one  entire  article  of  the 
sort  I  have  not  discussed  yet;  I  mean  the  military  tail  you  democrats  are 
now  engaged  in  dovetailing  on  to  the  great  Michigander.  Yes,  sir,  all 
his  biographers  (and  they  are  legion)  have  him  in  hand,  tying  him  to 
a  military  tail,  like  so  many  mischievous  boys  tying  a  dog  to  a  bladder 
of  beans.  True,  the  material  they  have  is  very  limited,  but  they  drive  at 
it  might  and  main.  He  z'/zvaded  Canada  without  resistance,  and  he  out- 
vaded  it  without  pursuit.  As  he  did  both  under  orders,  I  suppose  there 
was  to  him  credit  in  neither  of  them;  but  they  are  made  to  constitute  a 
large  part  of  the  tail.  He  was  volunteer  aid  to  General  Harrison  on  the 
day  of  the  battle  of  the  Thames,  and  as  you  said  in  1840  that  Harrison 
was  picking  whortleberries,  two  miles  off,  while  the  battle  was  fought,  I 
suppose  it  is  a  just  conclusion  with  you  to  say  Cass  was  aiding  Harrison 
to  pick  whortleberries.  This  is  about  all,  except  the  mooted  question  of 
the  broken  sword.  Some  authors  say  he  broke  it;  some  say  he  threw  it 
away,  and  some  others,  who  ought  to  know,  say  nothing  about  it.  Per 
haps  it  would  be  a  fair  historical  compromise  to  say,  if  he  did  not  break 
it,  he  did  not  do  anything  else  with  it." 


8o  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Lincoln  entered  into  this  presidential  canvass  very  zeal 
ously.  Writing  to  Herndon  to  get  up  clubs  and  get  the  young 
men  to  join,  he  says:  "  Let  every  one  play  the  part  he  can  play 
the  best.  Some  can  speak,  some  sing,  and  all  can  hallo  !  " 
He  went  to  New  York  and  New  England,  speaking  often 
and  earnestly  for  Taylor.  Returning,  he  spoke  with  great 
effect  in  Illinois  and  other  parts  of  the  West  during  the  can 
vass.  General  Taylor's  election  inspired  hopes  that  the 
extension  of  slavery  might  be  stopped,  and  that  the  admin 
istration  might  be  brought  back  to  the  policy  of  prohibiting 
it  in  the  territories. 

The  most  important  and  significant  act  of  Lincoln  at  this 
Congress,  was  the  introduction  by  him  into  the  House,  of  a 
bill  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  The  bill 
provided  that  no  person  from  without  the  District  should  be 
held  to  slavery  within  it,  and  that  no  person  born  thereafter 
within  the  District  should  be  held  to  slavery.  It  provided 
for  the  gradual  emancipation  of  all  the  slaves  in  the  District, 
with  compensation  to  their  masters,  and  that  the  act  should 
be  submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  people  of  the  District.  He 
prepared  the  bill  with  reference  to  the  condition  of  public 
sentiment  at  that  time,  and  what  was  possible  to  be  accom 
plished.  The  bill  represents  what  he  hoped  he  could  carry 
through  Congress,  and  into  a  law,  rather  than  his  own 
abstract  ideas  of  justice  and  right.  He  believed,  as  he  had 
declared  many  times,  and  emphatically  in  his  protest  to  the 
resolutions  in  the  Illinois  Legislature,  that  slavery  was 
"unjust  to  the  slave,  impolitic  to  the  nation,"  and  he  meant 
to  do  all  in  his  power  to  restrict  and  get  rid  of  it. 

Even  this  bill,  mild  as  it  was,  would  not  be  tolerated  by 
the  slave  states,  and  their  opposition  was  so  decided  and 
unanimous  that  he  was  not  able  even  to  bring  it  to  a  vote. 
He  also  at  about  this  time  voted  against  paying  for  slavey 
lost  by  officers  in  the  Seminole  war.  His  term  as  member  of 
Congress  expired  March  4,  1849,  and  he  was  not  a  candi 
date  for  re-election. 


CONGRESS  AND  THE  BAR.  8f 

He  sought  an  appointment  as  Commissioner  of  the  Gen 
eral  Land  Office  from  President  Taylor,  but,  to  the  surprise 
of  his  friends,  it  was  given  to  Justin  Butterfield,  a  distin 
guished  lawyer  from  Chicago.  The  offices  of  secretary  and 
governor  of  Oregon  Territory  were  offered  to  him,  but  were 
declined.  When  it  is  remembered  how  very  active  and 
influential  he  had  been  in  securing  the  nomination  and 
election  of  Taylor,  the  failure  of  the  administration  to* 
appoint  him  to  the  office  which  his  friends  asked,  is  strange,, 
and  it  was  a  great  disappointment.  He  did  not  hesitate  to> 
decline  the  appointment  to  Oregon,  conscious,  perhaps,  that 
there  was  a  great  work  for  him  to  do  on  this  side  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains. 

After  he  became  President,  the  member  of  Congress  rep 
resenting  the  Chicago  district,  in  behalf  of  a  son  of  Mr. 
Butterfield,  asked  for  an  appointment  in  the  army.  When, 
the  application  was  presented,  the  President  paused,  and 
after  a  moment's  silence,  said:  "  Mr.  Justin  Butterfield  once 
obtained  an  appointment  I  very  much  wanted,  and  in  which 
my  friends  believed  I  could  have  been  useful,  and  to  which 
they  thought  I  was  fairly  entitled,  and  I  have  hardly  ever 
felt  so  bad  at  any  failure  in  my  life,  but  I  am  glad  of  an 
opportunity  of  doing  a  service  to  his  son."  And  he  made 
an  order  for  his  commission.  He  then  spoke  of  the  offer 
made  to  him  of  the  governorship  of  Oregon.  To  which  the 
reply  was  made:  "  How  fortunate  that  you  declined.  If 
you  had  gone  to  Oregon,  you  might  have  come  back  as  sen 
ator,  but  you  would  never  have  been  President."  "Yes,  you 
are  probably  right,"  said  he,  and  then  with  a  musing,  dreamy 
look,  he  added:  "  I  have  all  my  life  been  a  fatalist.  What 
is  to  be  will  be,  or  rather,  I  have  found  all  my  life  as  Ham 
let  says: 

'  There's  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends, 
Rough-hew  them  how  we  will. '  " 

Mrs.  Lincoln  was  not  with  him  much  of  the  time  while  he 
was  in  Congress.     Robert  Todd,  their  eldest  son,  was  born 
on  the  ist  day  of  August,  1843;  the  second,  Edward  Baker, 
6 


82  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

on  the  loth  of  March,  1846;  the  third,  William  Wallace,  on 
December  2ist,  1850;  and  the  fourth,  Thomas,  on  April  4th, 
1853.  The  mother  was  too  busily  engaged  with  family  cares 
and  maternal  duties  while  her  husband  was  at  Washington, 
to  leave  home  for  any  considerable  time.  His  term  having 
expired,  and  he  having  failed  to  obtain  the  office  his  friends 
sought  for  him,  he  left  the  capital  for  his  prairie  home,  not 
to  return  until  he  went  back,  amidst  the  throes  and  convul 
sions  of  the  rebellion,  clothed  with  the  fearful  responsibilities 
of  the  Executive.  While  at  Washington  as  member  of  Con 
gress,  did  any  dim,  mysterious  vision  of  the  future  dawn 
upon  his  mind  ?  Did  he  sometimes  dream  of  the  White 
House,  of  the  Presidency,  of  emancipation  ?  Did  the 
prophecy  of  the  Voudou  negress  ever  recur  to  him  ?  What 
ever  his  dreams,  he  returned  to  Illinois  to  devote  himself, 
with  zeal  and  energy,  to  the  practice  of  the  law. 

Before  entering  upon  the  history  of  the  slavery  conflict, 
let  us  pause  and  consider  Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  lawyer,  advocate, 
and  orator.  From  his  retirement  from  Congress  in  1849, 
until  the  great  Lincoln  and  Douglas  debate  in  1858,  and, 
indeed,  until  his  nomination  for  the  Presidency  in  1860,  he 
was  engaged  in  the  laborious  and  successful  practice  of  his 
profession.  He  rode  the  circuit,  attended  the  terms  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  state  and  United  States  circuit  and 
district  courts,  and  was  frequently  called  on  special  retainers 
to  other  states.  He  had  a  very  large,  and  it  might  have 
been  a  very  lucrative  practice,  but  his  fees  were,  as  his 
brethren  of  the  bar  declared,  ridiculously  small.  He  lived 
simply,  comfortably,  and  respectably,  with  neither  expensive 
tastes  nor  habits.  His  wants  were  few  and  simple.  He  oc 
cupied  a  small,  unostentatious  house  in  Springfield,  and  was 
in  the  habit  of  entertaining,  in  a  very  simple  way,  his  friends 
and  his  brethren  of  the  bar,  during  the  terms  of  the  Court 
and  the  sessions  of  the  Legislature.  Mrs.  Lincoln  often  en 
tertained  small  numbers  of  friends  at  dinner,  and  somewhat 
larger  numbers  at  evening  parties.  In  his  modest  and  sim 
ple  home,  everything  was  orderly  and  refined,  and  there  was 


CONGRESS  AND  THE  BAR.  83 

always  on  the  part  of  both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln,  a  cordial, 
hearty,  western  welcome,  which  put  every  guest  perfectly  at 
ease.  Her  table  was  famed  for  the  excellence  of  its  rare 
Kentucky  dishes,  and  in  season  was  loaded  with  venison, 
wild  turkeys,  prairie  chickens,  quails,  and  other  game,  which 
in  those  early  days  was  abundant.  Yet  it  was  the  genial 
manner  and  ever  kind  welcome  of  the  hostess,  and  the  wit 
and  humor,  anecdote,  and  unrivalled  conversation  of  the 
host,  which  formed  the  chief  attraction,  and  made  a  dinner 
.at  Lincoln's  cottage  an  event  to  be  remembered. 

Lincoln's  income  from  his  profession  was  from  $2,000  to 
$3,000  per  annum.  His  property  at  this  time  consisted  of 
his  house  and  lot  in  Springfield,  a  lot  in  the  town  of  Lincoln, 
which  had  been  given  to  him,  and  160  acres  of  wild  land  in 
Iowa,  which  he  had  received  for  his  services  in  the  Black 
Hawk  war.  He  owned  a  few  law  and  miscellaneous  books. 
All  his  property  may  have  been  of  the  value  of  $10,000  or 
$12,000. 

When  he  returned  from  Washington  in  1849,  he  would 
have  been  instantly  recognized  in  any  court  room  in  the 
United  States,  as  being  a  very  tall  specimen  of  that  type  of 
long,  large-boned  men  produced  in  the  northern  part  of  the 
Mississippi  valley,  and  exhibiting  its  most  peculiar  character 
istics  in  the  mountains  of  Virginia,  Tennessee,  Kentucky, 
and  in  Illinois.  He  would  have  been  instantly  recognized 
as  a  western  man,  and  his  stature,  figure,  dress,  manner, 
voice,  and  accent  indicated  that  he  was  from. the  Northwest. 
In  manner  he  was  cordial,  frank,  and  friendly,  and,  although 
-not  without  dignity,  he  put  every  one  perfectly  at  ease. 
The  first  impression  a  stranger  meeting  him  or  hearing  him 
speak  would  receive,  was  that  of  a  kind,  sincere  and  genuinely 
good  man,  of  perfect  truthfulness  and  integrity.  He  was 
one  of  those  men  whom  everybody  liked  at  first  sight.  If  he 
spoke,  before  many  words  were  uttered,  the  hearer  would 
be  impressed  with  his  clear,  direct  good  sense,  his  simple, 
homely,  short  Anglo-Saxon  words,  by  his  wonderful  wit  and 
humor. 


84  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Attention  has  already  been  called  to  the  great  number  of 
short  and  simple  words  in  his  writings  and  speeches.  Lin 
coln  was,  upon  the  whole,  the  strongest  jury  lawyer  in  the 
state.  He  had  the  ability  to  perceive  with  almost  intuitive 
quickness  the  decisive  point  in  the  case.  In  the  examina 
tion  and  cross-examination  of  a  witness  he  had  no  equal. 
He  could  compel  a  witness  to  tell  the  truth  when  he  meant 
to  lie,  and  if  a  witness  lied  he  rarely  escaped  exposure  under 
Lincoln's  cross-examination.  He  could  always  make  a  jury 
laugh,  and  often  weep,  at  his  pleasure.  His  legal  arguments 
addressed  to  the  judges  were  always  clear,  vigorous,  and 
logical,  seeking  to  convince  rather  by  the  application  of 
principle  than  by  the  citation  of  cases.  A  stranger  going 
into  court  when  he  was  trying  a  cause  would,  after  a  few 
moments,  find  himself  on  Lincoln's  side,  and  wishing  him 
success.  He  seemed  to  magnetize  every  one.  He  was  so 
straightforward,  so  direct,  so  candid,  that  every  spectator 
was  impressed  with  the  idea  that  he  was  seeking  only  truth 
and  justice.  He  excelled  in  the  statement  of  his  case. 
However  complicated,  he  would  disentangle  it,  and  present 
the  real  issue  in  so  simple  and  clear  a  way  that  all  could 
understand.  Indeed,  his  statement  often  rendered  argument 
unnecessary,  and  frequently  the  court  would  stop  him  and 
say:  "  If  that  is  the  case,  Brother  Lincoln,  we  will  hear  the 
other  side."  His  illustrations  were  often  quaint  and  homely, 
but  always  apt  and  clear,  and  often  decisive.  He  always 
met  his  opponent's  case  fairly  and  squarely,  and  never  inten 
tionally  misstated  law  or  evidence.1 

Out  of  a  multitude  of  causes  a  few  are  cited  for  illustra 
tion.  One  of  the  most  interesting  cases  in  which  Lincoln 
was  engaged  early  in  his  professional  life,  grew  out  of  the 
sale  of  a  negro  girl  named  Nancy.  It  was  the  case  of  Bailey 

1.  Judge  David  Davis  said  of  Lincoln:  "  In  order  to  bring  into  activity  his  great 
powers,  It  was  necessary  he  should  be  convinced  of  the  right  and  justice  of  the  case 
he  advocated.  When  so  convinced,  whether  the  case  was  great  or  small,  he  was 
usually  successful." 

Judge  Thomas  Drummond  says:  ''He  had  a  clearness  of  statement  which  was 
itself  an  argument.  *  *  He  was  one  of  the  most  successful  lawyers  we  ever  had  in. 
the  state." 


CONGRESS  AND  THE  BAR.  85 

•vs.  Cromwell,  argued  and  decided  at  the  December  term  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  1841. l 

The  girl  was  alleged  to  have  been  held  as  an  indentured 
servant  or  slave,  and  had  been  sold  by  Cromwell  to  Bailey, 
and  a  promissory  note  taken  in  payment.  Suit  was  brought 
in  the  Tazewell  Circuit  Court  to  recover  the  amount  of  the 
note,  and  judgment  was  recovered.  The  case  was  taken  to 
the  Supreme  Court,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  made  an  elaborate 
argument  in  favor  of  reversing  the  judgment.  Judge  Logan 
represented  the  opposite  side.  Lincoln  contended,  among 
other  positions,  that  the  girl  was  free  by  virtue  of  the  ordi 
nance  of  1787,  prohibiting  slavery  in  the  Northwestern  Ter 
ritory,  of  which  Illinois  was  a  part,  as  well  as  by  the  consti 
tution  of  the  state,  which  prohibited  slavery.  He  insisted 
that,  as  it  appeared  from  the  record  that  the  consideration  of 
the  note  was  the  sale  of  a  human  being  in  a  free  state,  the 
note  was  void;  that  a  human  being  in  a  free  state  could  not 
be  the  subject  of  sale.  The  court,  the  opinion  given  by 
Judge  Breese,  reversed  the  judgment.  The  argument  by 
Lincoln,  a  very  brief  and  imperfect  statement  of  which  is 
given  in  the  report,  was  most  interesting,  and  the  question 
of  slavery  under  the  constitution,  the  ordinance  of  1787,  and 
the  law  of  nations,  was  very  carefully  considered.  He  was 
then  thirty-two  years  of  age,  and  it  is  probable  that  in 
preparing  the  argument  of  this  case  he  gave  the  subject  of 
slavery  and  the  legal  questions  connected  with  it  a  more  full 
and  elaborate  investigation  than  ever  before.2 

The  suit  of  Case  vs.  Snow,  tried  at  the  spring  term  of 
trie  Tazewell  Circuit  Court,  illustrates  both  Mr.  Lincoln's 
love  of  justice  and  his  adroitness  in  managing  an  ordinary 
case.  He  had  brought  an  action  in  behalf  of  an  old  man 
named  Case,  against  the  Snow  boys,  to  recover  the  amount 
of  a  note  given  by  them  in  payment  for  what  was  known  as  a 

1.  See  3d  Scammon's  Illinois  Reports,  p.  71,  where  an  imperfect  report  of  the  case 
will  be  found. 

2.  Mr.  Lincoln's  private  library  was  never  large.      There  was  a  respectable  law 
library  at  Springfield,  and  a  fair  miscellaneous  library  in  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of 
State,  to  which  he  always  had  access. 


86  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  prairie  team."  This  consists  of  a  breaking  plow  and  two 
or  three  yoke  of  oxen,  making  up  a  team  strong  enough  to 
break  up  the  strong,  tough,  thick  turf  of  the  prairie.  The 
defendants,  the  Snow  boys,  appeared  by  their  counsel  and 
plead  that  they  were  infants,  or  minors,  when  the  note  was 
given.  On  the  trial  Lincoln  produced  the  note,  and  it  was 
admitted  that  it  was  given  for  the  oxen  and  plow.  The 
defendants  then  offered  to  prove  that  they  were  under 
twenty-one  years  of  age  when  they  signed  the  note.  "Yes," 
said  Lincoln,  "  I  guess  that  is  true  and  we  will  admit  it." 

"  Is  there  a  count  in  the  declaration  for  oxen  and  plow, 
sold  and  delivered  ?  "  inquired  Judge  Treat,  the  presiding 
judge. 

"Yes,"  said  Lincoln,  "and  I  have  only  two  or  three 
questions  to  ask  of  the  witness."  This  witness  had  been 
called  to  prove  the  age  of  the  Snow  boys. 

"  Where  is  that  prairie  team  now  ?  "  said  Lincoln. 

"On  the  farm  of  the  Snow  boys." 

"  Have  you  seen  any  one  breaking  prairie  with  it  lately  ?  " 

"Yes,"  replied  the  witness,  "the  Snow  boys  were  break 
ing  up  with  it  last  week." 

"  How  old  are  the  boys  now  ?  " 

"  One  is  a  little  over  twenty-one,  and  the  other  near 
twenty-three." 

"  That  is  all,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln. 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  Lincoln  to  the  jury,  "  these  boys  never 
would  have  tried  to  cheat  old  farmer  Case  out  of  these  oxen 
and  that  plow,  but  for  the  advice  of  counsel.  It  was  bad 
advice,  bad  in  morals  and  bad  in  law.  The  law  never  sanc 
tions  cheating,  and  a  lawyer  must  be  very  smart  indeed  to 
twist  it  so  that  it  will  seem  to  do  so.  The  judge  will  tell  you 
what  your  own  sense  of  justice  has  already  told  you,  that 
these  Snow  boys,  if  they  were  mean  enough  to  plead  the 
baby  act,  when  they  came  to  be  men  should  have  taken  the 
oxen  and  plow  back.  They  can  not  go  back  on  their  con 
tract,  and  also  keep  what  the  note  was  given  for."  The 


CONGRESS  AND  THE  BAR.  87 

jury  without  leaving  their  seats  gave  a  verdict  for  old  farmer 
Case.1 

One  of  the  great  triumphs  of  Lincoln  at  the  bar  was  won 
in  the  trial  of  William  D.  Armstrong,  indicted  with  one  Nor- 
ris,  for  murder.  The  crime  had  been  committed  in  Mason 
County,  near  a  camp-meeting.  Norris  was  convicted  and 
sent  to  the  state  prison.  Armstrong  took  a  change  of  venue 
to  Cass  County,  on  the  ground  that  the  prejudices  of  the 
people  in  Mason  County  were  so  strong  against  him  that  he 
could  not  have  a  trial.  He  was  the  son  of  Jack  Armstrong, 
who  had  been  so  kind  to  Lincoln  in  early  life.  Jack  was 
dead,  but  Hannah,  who  when  Lincoln  was  roughing  it  at 
New  Salem,  had  been  so  motherly;  who  had  made  his  shirts, 
and  mended  his  well  worn  clothes;  who,  when  Lincoln  was 
depressed  and  gloomy,  had  in  her  rude  and  motherly  way 
tried  to  cheer  him  ;  she  now  came  to  him  and  begged  that 
he  would  save  her  son  from  the  gallows.  She  had  watched 
his  rise  to  distinction  with  pride  and  exultation.  In  a  cer 
tain  way  she  looked  upon  him  as  her  boy,  and  she  believed 
in  him.  Lincoln,  and  Lincoln  only,  as  she  thought,  could 
save  Bill  from  disgrace  and  death  ;  he  could  do  anything. 
She  went  to  Springfield,  and  begged  him  to  come  and  save 
her  son.  He  at  once  relieved  her  by  promising  to  do  all  he 
could. 

The  trial  came  on  at  Beardstown,  in  the  spring  of  1858. 
The  evidence  against  Bill  was  very  strong.  Indeed,  the  case 
for  the  defence  looked  hopeless.  Several  witnesses  'swore 
positively  to  his  guilt.  The  strongest  evidence  was  that  of  a 
man  who  swore  that  at  eleven  o'clock  at  night  he  saw 
Armstrong  strike  the  deceased  on  the  head.  That  the  moon 
was  shining  brightly  and  was  nearly  full,  and  that  its  posi 
tion  in  the  sky  was  just  about  that  of  the  sun  at  ten  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  and  that  by  it  he  saw  Armstrong  give  the 
mortal  blow.  This  was  fatal,  unless  the  effect  could  be 
broken  by  contradiction  or  impeachment.  Lincoln  quietly 
looked  up  an  almanac,  and  found  that,  at  the  time  this,  the 

1.  See  Lincoln  Memorial  Album,  pp.  187-188. 


88  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

principal  witness,  declared  the  moon  to  have  been  shining 
with  full  light,  there  was  no  moon  at  all.  There  were  some 
contradictory  statements  made  by  other  witnesses,  but  on  the 
whole  the  case  seemed  almost  hopeless.  Mr.  Lincoln  made 
the  closing  argument.  "  At  first,"  says  Mr.  Walker,  one  of 
the  counsel  associated  with  him,  "  he  spoke  slowly  and  care 
fully,  reviewed  the  testimony,  and  pointed  out  its  contradic 
tions,  discrepancies,  and  impossibilities.  When  he  had  thus 
prepared  the  way,  he  called  for  the  almanac,  and  showed 
that,  at  the  hour  at  which  the  principal  witness  swore  he  had 
seen,  by  the  light  of  the  full  moon,  the  mortal  blow  given, 
there  was  no  moon  at  all."  1 

This  was  the  climax  of  the  argument,  and  of  course 
utterly  disposed  of  the  principal  witness.  But  it  was  Lin 
coln's  eloquence  which  saved  Bill  Armstrong.  His  closing 
appeal  must  have  been  irresistible.  His  associate  says  : 
"  The  last  fifteen  minutes  of  his  speech  was  as  eloquent  as  I 
ever  heard."  *  *  «<  The  jury  sat  as  if  entranced,  and 
when  he  was  through,  found  relief  in  a  gush  of  tears.''  One 
of  the  prosecuting  attorneys  says  :  "  He  took  the  jury  by 
storm."  *  "There  were  tears  in  Lincoln's  eyes  while  he 
spoke,  but  they  were  genuine."  *  *  "I  have  said  an  hun 
dred  times  that  it  was  Lincoln's  speech  that  saved  that  crim 
inal  from  the  gallows."  He  pictured  to  the  jury  the  old 
Armstrong  home,  the  log  cabin  at  New  Salem;  the  aged 
mother,  her  locks  silvered  with  time,  was  sitting  by  his  side, 
as  he  spoke;  all  the  associations  of  those  early  days  came 
thronging  up,  his  own  feelings  were  thoroughly  roused,  and 
when  he  was  once  thus  roused,  his  personal  magnetism  was 
well  nigh  irresistible.  None  but  men  of  the  strongest  will 

1.  The  story  has  been  widely  circulated  that  Mr.  Lincoln  deceived  the  jury,  by 
producing  an  almanac  of  a  year  other  than  the  one  In  which  the  man  was  killed.  Mr. 
Henry  Shaw  says  (see  Lamon's  Lincoln,  p.  330),  "I  have  seen  several  of  the  jury,  who 
sat  in  the  case,  who  only  recollect  that  the  almanac  floored  the  witness.  *  * 

44  My  own  opinion  is  that  Lincoln  was  entirely  innocent  of  any  deception  in  the 
matter.  Mr.  Milton  Logan,  the  foreman  of  the  jury,  says  that  he  is  willing  to  make 
an  affidavit  that  the  almanac  was  of  the  year  of  the  murder."  Shaw  adds:  "Arm 
strong  was  not  cleared  by  want  of  testimony  against  him,  but  by  the  irresistible 
appeal  of  Mr.  Lincoln"  to  the  jury. 


CONGRESS  AND  THE  BAR.  89 

•could  stand  against  his  appeals.  The  jury  in  this  case  knew 
and  loved  Lincoln,  and  they  could  not  resist  him.  He  told 
the  anxious  mother:  "  Your  son  will  be  cleared  before  sun 
down."  When  Lincoln  closed,  and  while  the  state's  attor 
ney  was  attempting  to  reply,  she  left  the  court  room  and 
"  went  down  to  Thompson's  pasture,"  where,  all  alone,  she 
remained  awaiting  the  result.  Her  anxiety  may  be  imag 
ined,  but  before  the  sun  went  down  that  day,  Lincoln's  mes 
senger  brought  to  her  the  joyful  tidings  :  "  Bill  is  free. 
Your  son  is  cleared."  For  all  of  this  Lincoln  would  accept 
nothing  but  thanks. 

There  was  a  latent  power  in  him,  which  when  roused  was 
literally  overwhelming.  There  were  times,  when  fired  by 
great  injustice,  fraud,  or  wrong,  when  his  denunciation  was 
so  crushing  that  the  object  of  it  would  be  driven  from  the 
court  room.  A  story  is  current  around  Springfield,  that  on 
-one  occasion  his  reply  to  an  outrageous  attack  by  a  man 
named  Thomas,  was  so  severe,  that  Thomas  was  completely 
broken  down,  and  ran  out  of  the  court  room,  weeping  with 
rage  and  mortification. 

The  only  instance  known  of  his  taking  a  fee  regarded  as 
large,  was  his  charge  of  five  thousand  dollars  to  the  Illinois 
Central  Railroad,  for  very  important  services  in  the  Supreme 
Court.  This  great  corporation,  extending  with  its  road  bed 
and  branches,  more  than  seven  hundred  miles  in  the  state, 
was  party  in  a  case  involving  questions  of  difficulty  ;  in  this 
case  Lincoln  appeared  and  obtained  a  decision  of  vast  pecu 
niary  importance  to  the  road.  His  friends,  knowing  his  cus 
tom  of  charging  small  fees,  insisted  that  in  this  case,  and 
against  a  client  so  abundantly  able  to  pay,  his  charge  should 
be  liberal,  and  bear  some  relation  to  the  great  service  he  had 
rendered. 

In  1855,  he  was  retained  by  Manny,  in  the  great 
patent  case  of  McCormick  vs.  Manny,  involving  the 
question  of  the  infringement  of  the  McCormick  reaping 
machine  patents.  It  was  argued  at  Cincinnati,  before  Jus 
tice  McLean,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 


90  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Lincoln  was  associated  with  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  afterwards 
his  Secretary  of  War,  and  George  Harding,  of  Philadelphia. 
On  the  side  of  McCormick  were  William  H.  Seward,  Reverdy 
Johnson,  and  Edward  N.  Dickinson.  l 

The  last  case  Mr.  Lincoln  ever  tried,  was  that  of  Jones 
vs.  Johnson,  in  April  and  May,  1860,  in  the  United  States 
Circuit  Court,  at  Chicago.  The  case  involved  the  title  to 
land  of  very  great  value,  the  accretion  on  the  shores  of  Lake 
Michigan.  During  the  trial,  Judge  Drummond  and  all  the 
counsel  on  both  sides,  including  Mr.  Lincoln,  dined  together 
at  the  house  of  the  author.  Douglas  and  Lincoln  were  at  the 
time  both  candidates  for  the  nomination  for  President. 
There  were  active  and  ardent  political  friends  of  each  at  the 
table,  and  when  the  sentiment  was  proposed,  "  May  Illinois 
furnish  the  next  President,"  it  was  drunk  with  enthusiasm  by 
the  friends  of  both  Lincoln  and  Douglas. 

Was  Lincoln,  then,  an  orator  ?  Yes,  at  times  as  great  as 
the  greatest  of  orators.  He  was  always  simple,  earnest,  and 
entirely  sincere.  At  times  he  rose  to  the  very  highest  elo 
quence — on  rare  occasions  when  greatly  moved.  When  car 
ried  away  by  some  great  theme,  with  some  vast  audience 
before  him,  he  seemed  at  times  like  one  inspired.  He  would 
begin  in  a  diffident  and  awkward  manner,  but,  as  he  became 
absorbed  in  his  subject,  then  there  would  come  that  wonder 
ful  transformation,  of  which  so  many  have  spoken.  Self-con 
sciousness,  diffidence,  and  awkwardness  disappeared.  His 
attitude  became  dignified,  his  figure  seemed  to  expand,  his 
features  were  illuminated,  his  eyes  blazed  with  excitement, 
and  his  action  became  bold  and  commanding.  Then  his 
voice  and  everything  about  him  became  electric,  his  cadence 
changed  with  every  feeling,  and  his  whole  audience  became 
completely  magnetized.  Every  sentence  called  forth  a 
responsive  emotion.  To  see  Lincoln,  on  such  great  occa 
sions,  on  an  open  prairie,  the  central  figure  of  ten  thousand 
people,  every  sound  but  that  of  his  voice  hushed  to  perfect 
silence,  every  eye  bent  upon  him,  every  ear  open,  eager  ta 

1.  See  McCormick  vs.  Manny,  G  McLean's  Rep.  p.  539. 


CONGRESS  AND  THE  BAR.  9! 

catch  each  word,  his  voice  clear  and  powerful,  and  of  a  key 
that  could  be  distinctly  heard  by  all  the  vast  multitude  ;  to  hear 
him  on  such  occasions,  speaking  on  the  great  themes  of  lib 
erty  and  slavery,  was  to  hear  Demosthenes  thundering  against 
Philip  ;  it  was  like  hearing  Patrick  Henry  plead  for 
American  liberty. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT. 

SLAVERY  AT  THE  ADOPTION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION. —  EFFORTS  FOR 
ITS  ABOLITION. —  ORDINANCE  OF  1787. —  ITS  GROWTH. —  ITS 
ACQUISITION  OF  TERRITORY. —  FLORIDA. —  LOUISIANA. —  THE 
MISSOURI  COMPROMISE. —  ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. —  THE  WILMOT 
PROVISO. —  MEXICAN  PROVINCES  SEIZED. —  THE  LIBERTY  PARTY. 
—  ITS  GROWTH. —  THE  BUFFALO  CONVENTION.— THE  COMPRO 
MISE  OF  1850. 

THE  life  of  Lincoln  had  thus  far  been  one  of  prepara 
tion.  He  had  hardly  begun  his  great  work.  He  had  become, 
by  study  and  experience,  fitted  and  armed  for  the  great 
career  upon  which  he  was  now  about  to  enter.  His  life  may  be 
considered  as  divided  into  three  distinct  periods,  which  may 
be  thus  characterized.  The  first  period,  that  of  preparation, 
embraces  his  life  from  his  birth  in  1809,  to  1849-50;  the 
.second  covers  the  birth,  growth,  and  triumph  of  the  repub 
lican  party  from  1850  to  1860;  the  third  includes  his 
administration  and  re-election,  his  triumph  in  the  abolition 
of  slavery  and  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion,  closing  with 
his  death  in  1865.  When  he  entered  upon  his  life-work,  he 
was,  like  Moses,  the  deliverer  of  the  Jews,  about  forty  years 
of  age. 

Before  entering  upon  the  narrative  of  the  second  period 
of  his  life,  let  us  pause  to  consider  his  surroundings.  To 
understand  and  fully  appreciate  his  work,  we  must  first 
.sketch  in  brief  outline,  the  history  of  African  slavery  in  the 
republic.  The  antagonism  between  freedom  and  slavery 

92 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT.  93 

has  never  been  more  strikingly  exhibited  than  in  the  United 
States.  From  the  beginning,  slavery  was  the  only  serious 
cause  of  division  in  the  republic.  The  people  of  our  coun 
try  were  substantially  one.  They  had  to  a  great  extent  a 
common  lineage,  the  same  religion,  literature,  laws,  and  his 
tory.  That  portion  of  the  earth  known  as  the  United  States 
is  adapted  by  its  physical  conformation  to  be  the  home  of 
one  great  national  family,  and  not  of  many.  Without  slavery 
the  people  would  naturally  have  gravitated  into  one  homo 
geneous  nation.  But  the  antagonism  between  free  and  slave 
labor  produced  a  great  conflict  of  ideas,  growing  more  and 
more  earnest  and  fierce,  until  it  ended  in  a  tremendous  con 
flict  of  arms.  Let  us  briefly  sketch  the  history  of  this 
anomaly  of  slavery  in  a  nation  which,  in  the  words  of  Lin 
coln,  was  "conceived  in  liberty  and  dedicated  to  the  proposi 
tion  that  all  men  are  created  equal,"  and  embodying  in  its 
Declaration  of  Independence,  the  great  charter  of  human 
rights. 

Slavery  was  introduced  into  the  English  Colonies  in 
America,  against  the  protests  of  the  early  settlers.  As  early 
as  1772,  the  Assembly  of  Virginia  petitioned  the  British 
Government  to  stop  the  importation  of  slaves.  To  which 
petition  the  King  replied  that  "  upon  pain  of  his  highest  dis 
pleasure,  the  importation  of  slaves  should  not  be,  in  any 
respect,  obstructed." 

The  fathers  of  the  revolution  tolerated  slavery  as  a  tem 
porary  evil,  which  they  justly  regarded  as  incompatible  with 
the  principles  of  liberty  embraced  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  They 
never  intended  that  it  should  be  a  permanent  institution, 
much  less,  that  it  should  extend  beyond  the  states  in  which 
it  then  existed.  They  confidently  hoped  that  it  would  soon 
disappear  before  the  moral  agencies  then  operating  against 
it.  They  believed  that  public  opinion,  finding  expression 
through  the  press,  public  discussion,  and  religious  organiza 
tions,  would  secure  such  state  and  national  legislation,  as 


94  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

would  at  an  early  day,  secure  liberty  to  all,  throughout  the 
republic.1 

At  the  first  general  Congress  of  the  colonies,  held  in 
Philadelphia,  in  1774,  Jefferson  presented  a  bill  of  rights,  in 
which  it  is  declared  that  "  the  abolition  of  slavery  is  the 
greatest  object  of  desire  of  these  colonies."  In  October, 
1774,  Congress  declared:  "We  will  neither  import,  not 
purchase  any  slave  imported  after  the  ist  of  December 
next." 

On  the  1 4th  of  April,  1775,  there  was  organized  at  the 
Sun  Tavern,  on  Second  Street,  in  Philadelphia,  the  first  anti- 
slavery  society  ever  formed.2  Patrick  Henry,  in  a  letter 
dated  January  iSth,  1773,  and  addressed  to  Robert  Pleasant, 
afterwards  president  of  the  Virginia  Abolition  Society,  says: 
"I  believe  a  time  will  come  when  an  opportunity  will  be 
offered  to  abolish  this  lamentable  evil."  General  Washington, 
in  a  letter  to  Robert  Morris,  speaking  of  slavery,  says: 
"There  is  not  a  man  living,  who  wishes  more  sincerely  than 
I  do,  to  see  a  plan  adopted  for  the  abolition  of  it."  In  1787, 
Benjamin  Franklin  and  Benjamin  Rush,  both  signers  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  were  president  and  secretary 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Anti-Slavery  Society.  In  1787,  a  society 
was  formed  in  New  York,  of  which  John  Jay, who  had  presided 
over  the  Continental  Congress,  was  president,  "for  promoting 
the  manumission  of  slaves."  Alexander  Hamilton  was  a  mem 
ber,  and  afterwards  president.  The  Maryland  Society  for  the 
promotion  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  was  formed  in  1789, 
and  in  the  same  year,  a  society  for  the  same  purpose  was 
organized  in  Rhode  Island.  The  Connecticut  Society  was 
organized  in  1790,  and  of  this,  Dr.  Ezra  Stiles,  president  of 
Yale  College,  was  president.  The  Virginia  Society  was 

1.  There  Is  nowhere  to  be  found  in  American  literature,  an  exposition  of  the 
opinions  of  the  fathers  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  and  the  power  of  the  Federal  Gov. 
eminent  to  control  and  prohibit  its  extension  in  the  territories,  as  full  as  that  con 
tained  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cooper  Institute  speech.     It  is  thorough,  exhaustive  and 
accurate. 

2.  See  a  very  carefully  prepared  and  learned  tract  by  William  F.  Poole,  entitled 
"Anti-Slavery  Opinions  before  1800."    P.  43. 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT.  95 

formed  in  1791,  and  that  of  New  Jersey  in  1792.!  The 
officers  of  these  anti-slavery  societies  were  the  most  eminent 
men  of  the  time. 

In  1780,  Pennsylvania  passed  a  law  for  gradual  eman 
cipation,  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut  did  the  same  in 
1784,  and  New  York  in  1799.  In  1784,  Mr.  Jefferson  drew 
up  an  ordinance  for  the  government  of  the  western 
territories,  prohibiting  slavery  after  1800.  Had  this  been 
adopted,  there  would  have  been  no  slave  state  added  to  the 
original  thirteen,  for  there  would  have  been  no  slave  terri 
tories  out  of  which  to  form  new  slave  states.  The  original 
thirteen  were,  state  after  state,  abolishing  slavery.  The 
institution  was  thus,  in  the  language  of  Lincoln,  in  "  the  way 
of  ultimate  extinction." 

The  ordinance  of  1787,  by  which  freedom  was  forever 
secured  to  the  Northwest,  to  the  territory  out  of  which  were 
formed  the  important  states  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Mich 
igan,  and  Wisconsin,  was  by  far  the  most  important  anti- 
slavery  measure  from  the  organization  of  the  government 
down  to  the  proclamation  of  emancipation  by  Abraham 
Lincoln.  Its  influence  has  been  decisive,  both  on  the  moral 
and  martial  conflict  which  was  then  a  thing  of  the  future. 
Without  the  votes  and  influence  of  the  Northwest,  slavery 
would  probably  have  triumphed.  It  is  true,  that  the  love  of 
freedom  nurtured  by  the  free  schools  and  literature  of  New 
England,  beginning  like  the  source  of  her  great  rivers 
among  her  granite  hills,  expanded  like  those  rivers,  until  it 
became  a  mighty  stream,  but  it  was  the  broad  and  majestic 
torrent  from  the  Northwest,  which,  like  its  own  Mississippi, 
gave  to  the  current  of  freedom,  volume  and  power  and  irre 
sistible  strength,  until  it  broke  down  all  opposition  and  swept 
away  all  resistance. 

While  the  principles  of  the  Revolution  seemed  likely  by 
peaceful  agencies  to  destroy  slavery,  new  elements  entered 
into  the  conflict.  The  most  important  of  these  was  the 

1.  See  "Anti-Slavery  Opinions  before  1800,"  by  William  F.  Poole. 


96  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

invention  by  Whitney  of  the  cotton-gin,  and  the  rapid 
increase  in  the  production  of  cotton,  thereby  making  slave 
labor  far  more  profitable.  This  was  followed  soon  after,  by 
a  vast  addition  to  the  domain  of  the  Union  of  new  territory, 
adapted  to  the  cultivation  by  negro  labor  of  the  cotton  plant; 
Then  there  soon  arose  also  a  gigantic  pecuniary  interest 
which  found  rapidly  acquired  wealth  in  slave  labor.  A 
powerful  cotton  and  slave  aristocracy  was  with  consummate 
skill  soon  organized,  and,  with  an  immense  property  invested 
in  lands  and  negroes,  soon  dominated  over  the  cotton  states, 
and  by  and  by  in  its  arrogance  proclaimed  "  Cotton  is  King." 
In  sympathy  with  this,  there  grew  up  in  the  more  northern 
slave  states  a  powerful  interest  which  sought  wealth  in  rear 
ing  negroes  for  sale.  And  simultaneously  with  these,  there 
grew  up  in  the  North  a  strong  cotton  manufacturing  interest 
hostile  to  any  interference  with  slavery.  Knowing  their  own 
weakness,  feeling  the  insecurity  of  property  founded  upon 
wrong  and  injustice,  the  slaveholders,  relatively  few  in  num 
bers,  combined  and  united  into  a  compact,  active,  bold, 
unscrupulous,  and  determined  political  power.  They  became 
skillful  politicians.  They  selected  their  ablest  men  for  lead 
ers,  and  kept  them  in  office  and  power.  They  carefully 
educated  their  most  talented  young  men  for  public  life.  In 
the  free  states  they  bought  up,  and  subsidised,  by  the  rewards 
of  official  position,  many  of  the  most  talented  and  ambi 
tious  public  men.  The  masses  of  the  people  in  the  free 
states,  absorbed  in  material  pursuits,  engrossed  with  the  labor 
of  subduing  the  forests,  and  in  opening  their  farms,  in  build 
ing  towns,  cities,  schools,  churches,  colleges,  canals,  and 
railways,  were  skillfully  kept  divided,  and  were  for  many 
years  ruled  by  the  more  adroit  and  experienced  politicians 
of  the  slave  states. 

A  great  change  in  public  sentiment  soon  became  appa 
rent.  The  abolition  societies,  which  not  long  after  the 
organization  of  the  government  were  very  generally  formed, 
and  embraced  among  their  members  the  most  prominent  and 
influential  citizens,  gradually  disappeared,  while  the  religious- 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT.  97 

organizations  ceased  to  protest  against  slavery,  and  many  of 
them  went  so  far  as  to  give  the  institution  their  sanction  and 
support. 

The  vigilant  and  sagacious  leaders  of  the  slave  power 
began  carefully  and  systematically  to  strengthen  and 
entrench.  In  1790,  Congress  accepted  from  North  Carolina 
the  territory  now  constituting  the  state  of  Tennessee,  upon 
condition  that  so  much  of  the  ordinance  of  1787  as  forbade 
slavery  should  not  be  applied  to  it,  and  that  no  regulation 
should  be  made  by  Congress  for  the  emancipation  of  slaves.. 
This  was  followed,  in  1796,  by  the  admission  of  Tennessee 
into  the  Union  as  a  slave  state. 

In  1790,  the  capital  was  located  at  Washington,  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  upon  territory  ceded  for  that  purpose 
to  the  United  States  by  Maryland  and  Virginia.  All  the 
laws  of  these  two  states  relating  to  slavery  were  continued 
over  this  territory.  Thus  slavery  was  legalized  in  the  capi 
tal  of  the  republic,  and  in  a  district  over  which  Congress 
had  exclusive  jurisdiction  and  control.  The  capital,  which 
had  been  on  free  soil  in  Philadelphia  and  New  York,  was 
removed  to  slave  territory,  and  this  was  a  most  important 
step  in  strengthening  the  slave  aristocracy.  The  public 
opinion  of  the  capital  to  some  extent  gave  tone  to  national 
sentiment.  This  change  secured  for  slavery  the  great  and 
active  influence  of  fashionable  society.  The  power  of  Wash 
ington  society  and  public  opinion  over  the  executive,  judi 
cial,  and  legislative  departments  of  the  government,  has 
always  been  felt,  and  down  to  the  advent  of  Lincoln  as 
President  was  an  ever  present  ally  of  slavery. 

In  1802,  Georgia  ceded  to  the  United  States  the  country 
lying  between  her  present  western  boundary  and  the  Missis 
sippi,  providing  that  the  ordinance  of  1787  should  be 
extended  over  it,  carefully  excepting  the  clause  which 
prohibited  slavery.  From  the  territory  thus  ceded  came  the 
slave  state  of  Mississippi,  admitted  into  the  Union  in  1817, 
and  the  state  of  Alabama,  admitted  in  1819.  In  1803,  the 
United  States  purchased  from  France,  for  fifteen  millions  of 
7 


98  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

dollars,  the  territory  of  Louisiana,  where  there  were  already 
forty  thousand  slaves.  Louisiana  territory  was  cut  up  into 
three  states:  Louisiana,  admitted  in  1812;  Missouri,  admitted 
in  1821,  and  Arkansas,  admitted  in  1836.  In  1809,  the 
United  States  purchased  of  Spain  the  territory  of  Florida, 
and  Florida  was  admitted  as  a  slave  state  in  1836. 

Thus  the  slave  aristocracy  had  secured  four  new  slave 
states  from  the  original  territory  of  the  United  States,  viz.: 
Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Alabama,  and  Mississippi,  and  from 
new  territory  purchased  for  its  expansion  it  had  secured  four 
other  states,  to-wit:  Louisiana,  Missouri,  Arkansas,  and 
Florida.  Not  content  with  this,  but  eager  for  power  and 
expansion,  the  slaveholders  determined  to  extend  the  insti 
tution  still  further  south,  and  as  the  first  step,  resolved  to 
annex  the  immense  territory  of  Texas.  The  leading  slave- 
holding  statesmen,  shrewd  and  sagacious,  now  boldly 
declared  that  Texas  would  give  them  the  control  of  the 
national  government,  and  make  slavery  secure.  "  It  will 
give  a  Gibraltar  to  slavery,"  said  one  of  their  leaders.  This 
compact,  well  organized  power  now  pursued  its  purpose 
with  vigor  and  sagacity  and  relentless  determination,  strik 
ing  down  and  politically  sacrificing  every  statesman  and 
every  public  man  who  dared  to  oppose  its  designs.  Van 
Buren,  Benton,  and  Wright,  each  of  whom  had  been  a 
trusted  leader,  were  sacrificed  because  of  their  opposition  to 
the  annexation  of  Texas. 

President  Garfield,  in  Congress  in  1865,  speaking  on  the 
joint  resolution  to  abolish  and  prohibit  slavery  forever 
throughout  the  republic,  and  alluding  to  the  power  of  slavery, 
exclaimed:  "  Many  mighty  men  have  been  slain  by  her,  and 
many  proud  ones  have  humbled  themselves  at  her  feet.  All 
along  the  coast  of  the  political  sea  they  lie  like  stranded 
wrecks,  broken  on  the  headlands  of  freedom." 

Unable  to  accomplish  the  annexation  by  treaty,  the  lead 
ers  of  the  slavery  party  finally,  in  1845,  carried  it  by  joint 
resolution  of  both  houses  of  Congress.  Thus  slavery  had 
secured  nine  slave  states,  and  eighteen  senators  in  the 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT.  99 

United  States  Senate,  thereafter  appropriately  called  the 
citadel  of  its  power.  The  free  states  saw  with  uneasiness 
these  vast  accessions  of  territory  in  the  hands  of  imperious 
slave  holders,  and  murmurs,  deep  if  not  loud,  began  to  be 
heard,  but  the  cotton  growing  and  manufacturing  interests 
rebuked  these  murmurs,  tried  to  stifle  discussion,  and  cried 
peace  to  those  who  agitated  for  freedom. 

A  most  determined  resistance  was  made  to  the  admission 
of  Missouri  as  a  slave  state.  The  conflict  over  this  question 
continued  from  1819  to  1821,  and  was  finally  settled  by  what 
is  known  as  the  Missouri  Compromise,  carried  through  Con 
gress  largely  by  the  personal  influence  of  Henry  Clay.  By 
this  compromise,  Missouri  was  admitted  as  a  slave  state,  with 
a  law  providing  that  all  the  western  territory,  north  of  the 
parallel  of  latitude  of  36°  30',  should  be  forever  free.  It  was 
the  first  great  and  direct  conflict  between  the  free  and  the 
slave  states,  and  was  terminated  by  a  victory  for  the  slave 
holders  in  the  form  of  this  compromise,  which  all  parties  for 
a  long  time  considered  sacred,  and  which  afterwards,  the 
.author  of  its  repeal,  Douglas,  declared  that  "  no  ruthless 
hand  would  ever  be  reckless  enough  to  disturb." 

Although  the  admission  of  Missouri  as  a  slave  state  was 
opposed  with  the  utmost  vigor,  yet  the  importance  of  the 
question  was  not  at  the  time  fully  appreciated  by  the  free 
states.  Had  Missouri  come  in  as  a  free  state,  it  would 
probably  have  been  decisive,  and  have  given  the  balance  of 
power  to  the  North,  and  perhaps  might  have  saved  the 
republic  from  the  great  Civil  War.  As  a  free  state,  the  route 
of  free  labor,  of  pioneer  colonization,  would  have  passed  up 
the  valleys  of  the  Mississippi,  the  Missouri,  and  the  Arkan 
sas,  to  all  the  West,  and  to  Northern  Texas.  As  a  slave  state, 
free  labor  was  crowded  far  to  the  North  and  West.  By  this 
success,  the  slave  holders  secured  in  the  great  state  of  Mis 
souri,  a  most  commanding  position  in  the  very  center  of  the 
republic.  From  that  time  until  1860,  the  control  of  slavery 
over  the  National  Government  was  substantially  absolute. 
Whatever  the  slave  power  seriously  determined  should  be 


IOO  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

done,  was  done.  It  is  true  free  labor  triumphed  in  Califor 
nia  and  in  Kansas,  but  it  was  over,  and  in  spite  of,  the  adverse 
influence  of  the  Federal  Government.  From  the  Missouri 
struggle  down  to,  and  after,  the  Mexican  war,  the  predomi 
nating  influence  of  the  slave  power  was  marked  and  decided. 
That  power  had  a  great  advantage  in  the  provision  of  the 
Constitution  which  gave  representation  to  slaves.  In  the 
apportionment  of  members  of  Congress,  and  in  the  electoral 
college,  a  man  owning  five  thousand  slaves  had  a  power 
equivalent  to  three  thousand  freemen,  and  practically  far 
more,  because  the  slaveholders,  relatively  few  in  number, 
and  held  together  by  a  common  interest,  were  a  compact,, 
vigilant,  sagacious  body.  They  constituted  an  aristocratic 
class,  carefully  educated  for  affairs  and  public  life.  Nearly 
all  the  brightest  intellects  of  the  South  were  absorbed  in 
politics,  while  in  the  free  states,  they  were  engaged  in  all  the 
varied  pursuits  of  civilization.  They  were  inventing  labor- 
saving  machinery,  producing  the  steam  engine,  the  cotton 
gin,  the  telegraph,  the  reaping  machine,  opening  canals  and 
constructing  railways,  rivaling  the  world  in  ship  building, 
creating  a  national  literature  and  schools  of  art,  and  com 
peting  successfully  with  Europe  in  the  products  of  skilled 
labor,  in  learning,  in  science,  and  in  the  fine  arts.  During 
this  period  the  slaveholders,  though  in  a  minority,  largely 
monopolized  the  offices  of  power,  profit,  and  influence  under 
the  government.  And  it  must  be  admitted,  that  they  fur 
nished  able  statesmen  to  govern  the  country.  They  selected 
their  best  men,  trained  them  for,  and  kept  them  permanently 
in  public  life,  while  in  the  North,  a  custom  of  rotation  in 
office,  kept  many  of  the  ablest  men  out  of  public  life,  and  if 
elected,  they  did  not  remain  long  enough  to  acquire  the 
practical  skill  and  experience  necessary  to  govern  a  great 
nation.  Thus  the  slave  power,  united,  wise,  and  watchful, 
seized  and  held  the  reins  of  government.  The  national 
capital  became  a  slave  mart.  The  noble  old  commonwealth 
of  Virginia,  with  her  stern  motto  "  sic  semper  tyrannis" 
sought  wealth,  but  found  poverty  and  barbarism,  in  breeding, 
slaves  for  sale  to  the  Gulf  States. 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT.  IQI 

We  have  already  stated  the  fact  that  this  power,  desiring 
Texas  for  the  extension  of  slavery,  made  war  on  Mexico, 
and  seized  and  appropriated  the  coveted  territory.  Gov 
ernor  Wise,  of  Virginia,  boldly  announced  the  determination 
that  "  slavery  should  pour  itself  abroad,  and  have  no  limit 
but  the  southern  ocean." 

This  grasping  spirit,  as  will  be  seen  directly,  overreached 
itself.  Texas,  and  Mexican  territory,  was  needed  for  the 
extension  of  slavery,  and  Mexico  refusing  to  sell  or  cede, 
the  territory  was  seized  by  force.  On  the  yth  of  July,  1845, 
Commodore  Sloat,  of  the  United  States  Navy,  issued  a  proc 
lamation  declaring  that  California  (then  a  Mexican  province) 
"now  belongs  to  the  United  States."  The  gallant  and 
adventurous  Fremont  scaled  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  took 
possession  of  that  land  of  gold.  Scott  and  Taylor  marched 
their  armies  at  will  through  Mexico,  and  took  possession  of 
its  capital.  Mexico,  unable  to  resist,  yielded  all  of  Texas  ; 
New  Mexico  and  Upper  and  Lower  California  were  also 
ceded,  and  now  the  slave  power  was  more  confident  than 
ever  of  securing  the  ultimate  control  of  the  republic,  and 
of  the  indefinite  extension  of  the  slave  empire.  But  the 
end  of  the  day  of  their  supremacy  was  rapidly  approaching. 
When,  in  1846,  President  Polk  asked  an  appropriation  of 
two  millions,  with  which  to  negotiate  peace,  David  Wilmot, 
member  of  Congress  from  Pennsylvania,  moved  what  is 
known  as  the  "  Wilmot  Proviso,"  which  declared  that  it 
should  be  a  condition  to  the  acquisition  of  any  territory  from 
Mexico,  "  that  neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude 
should  ever  exist  in  any  part  thereof,  except  for  crime, 
whereof  the  party  should  be  duly  convicted."  This  proviso 
was  adopted  by  the  House  of  Representatives,  but  was  not 
at  that  session  acted  upon  by  the  Senate.  At  the  next  ses 
sion,  President  Polk  asked  an  appropriation  of  three  millions 
for  the  same  purpose,  and  to  that  appropriation  the  same 
proviso  was  applied.  It  was  adopted,  after  a  fierce  contest 
in  the  House,  but  rejected  in  the  Senate,  and  the  bill  coming 
back  to  the  House,  was  finally,  after  a  long  and  passionate 


IO2  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

struggle,  passed  without  the  proviso.  In  the  negotiations 
which  followed,  Mexico  sought  to  make  the  prohibition  of 
slavery  a  condition  of  cession,  and  this  especially  as  slavery 
did  not  then  exist  in  the  territory  in  question.  The  United 
States  minister  peremptorily  refused  to  treat  on  this  basis, 
declaring  that  "  if  the  whole  territory  was  offered,  increased 
ten  fold  in  value,  and  covered  a  foot  thick  with  pure  gold,, 
upon  the  single  condition  that  slavery  should  be  excluded 
therefrom,  he  would  not  entertain  the  idea,  nor  even  think 
of  communicating  the  proposition  to  Washington."  Such 
was  the  animus  of  the  Mexican  war,  and  such  the  arrogance 
of  the  slave  power.  Mexico,  weak  and  helpless,  her  capital 
and  provinces  held  by  the  Federal  troops,  was  compelled  to 
accept  such  terms  as  were  dictated  to  her.  But  these  aggres 
sions  had  at  last  aroused  the  free  states,  and  brought  on  at 
last  the  "  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT." 

An  anti-slavery  party,  independent  of  all  existing  onesr 
was  about  to  be  organized,  and  thereafter  rapidly  to  increase 
in  power.  In  December,  1833,  a  few  zealous  and  determined 
men  met  in  Philadelphia,  and  formed  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society.  The  convention  was  composed  of  sixty- 
two  delegates  from  ten  states.1  John  G.  Whittier,  the  poet, 
was  secretary.  This,  with  other  and  similar  local  associa 
tions,  formed  the  beginnings  of  the  party  which,  twenty-seven 
years  thereafter,  elected  the  great  statesman  of  Illinois  to  the 
presidency.  These  men  planted  the  acorn  of  that  oak 
which,  in  1860,  overshadowed  the  land.  Garrison,  Wendell 
Phillips,  the  Lovejoys,  John  Quincy  Adams,  Giddings,  Ger- 
rit  Smith,  Dr.  Channing,  Cassius  M.  Clay,  and  many  others 
were  pioneers  in  the  great  cause  of  freedom.  Differing 
widely  in  opinions  and  as  to  means,  yet  in  various  ways  they 
exerted  a  powerful  influence  in  arousing  the  public  mind  to 
the  wrongs  of  slavery,  and  the  dangerous  encroachments  of 
the  slave  power. 

1.  See  "Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power,"  by  Henry  Wilson,  pp.  254,  255.  Whit- 
tier  said  thirty  years  thereafter,  and  after  his  fame  as  a  poet  had  extended  over  the 
world :  "  I  love  perhaps  too  well  the  praise  and  good  will  of  my  fellow  men,  but  I  set 
a  higher  value  on  my  name  as  appended  to  the  anti-slavery  declaration  of  1833,  than 
on  the  title  page  of  any  book." 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT.  103 

The  societies  thus  organized  boldly  declared  their  reso 
lution  to  exterminate  slavery  from  the  republic,  but  declared 
that  this  was  to  be  done  by  moral  influences.  They  encoun 
tered  mobs  and  personal  violence.  Their  printing  presses 
were  destroyed.  The  halls  in  which  they  met  were  burned, 
and  some  of  them  were  murdered  for  boldly  expressing^ 
by  voice  and  pen,  their  convictions.  While  in  the  free  states, 
the  outrages  of  mobs  and  the  various  persecutions  to  which 
the  anti-slavery  men  were  subjected,  served  only  rapidly  to 
add  to  their  strength,  in  the  slave  states,  liberty  of  the  press 
and  freedom  of  speech  were  subject  to  every  outrage,  and 
the  laws  furnished  neither  protection  nor  redress.  Neither 
at  the  bar  nor  in  the  pulpit,  neither  from  the  newspaper  nor 
from  the  stump,  not  in  courts  nor  in  legislative  halls,  was  the 
voice  of  free  debate  permitted  to  be  heard.  Free  negroes 
and  fugitives  from  slavery  were  scourged,  whipped,  and  tor 
tured.  The  literature  of  the  vernacular  in  school  books, 
history,  and  poetry  was  expurgated,  and  the  generous  and 
manly  utterances  of  liberty  stricken  from  their  pages.  Such 
was  the  dark  despotism  which  settled  over  a  republic  which 
had  been  constructed  on  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence. 

It  was  against  this  despotic  power,  many  of  whose  repre 
sentatives  were  vulgar,  gross,  licentious,  cruel,  and  treacher 
ous  men,  that  the  free  spirit  of  the  North  now  rose. 
The  anti-slavery  party,  small  in  numbers,  yet  full  of  fiery 
zeal  and  ardor,  and  counting  in  its  ranks  much  of  the  cul 
ture  and  intellect  of  the  nation,  grappled  with  a  power  which 
at  that  time  controlled  the  national  and  nearly  all  the  state 
governments,  which  dominated  both  the  great  parties,  ruled 
the  churches,  the  press,  and  the  financial  and  business  inter 
ests  of  the  country  ;  a  power  whose  social  influence  was 
almost  omnipotent.  It  held  the  press  and  the  sword  of  the 
nation,  and  filled  every  office,  from  that  of  village  postmas 
ter  to  that  of  President.  This  small  anti-slavery  party, 
armed  with  truth  and  right,  met  this  giant  despotism,  and 
ultimately  triumphed  over  it.  Although  its  first  vote  was  so 


IO4  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

small  as  to  be  almost  counted  among  the  "scattering,"  in 
1840  it  had  increased  more  than  ten  fold.  The  ability,  elo 
quence,  and  genius  displayed  by  its  advocates  in  their 
speeches  and  publications,  largely  aided  by  the  encroach 
ments,  cruelties,  and  arrogance  of  the  slave  power,  prepared 
the  way  for  the  free  soil  party  of  1848. 

In  that  year  the  whig  party  nominated  as  its  candidate 
for  President,  General  Zachary  Taylor.  The  democratic 
party  nominated  General  Lewis  Cass  over  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
who  had  opposed  the  annexation  of  Texas.  Both  of  these 
great  parties  refused  to  take  position  against  the  extension  of 
slavery.  Then  the  liberty,  or  anti-slavery  democrats,  with 
the  anti-slavery  men  of  all  parties,  called  the  convention 
which  met  at  Buffalo  in  June,  1848,  and  organized  the  free 
soil  party.  It  was  largely  attended,  both  by  delegates  from 
all  the  free  states,  and  by  representatives  from  Maryland, 
the  District  of  Columbia,  Delaware,  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and 
Missouri.  Many  very  distinguished  and  able  men  were 
there,  who  had  hitherto  acted  with  the  whig  and  democratic 
parties,  and  their  presence  indicated  the  breaking  up  of  old 
party  organizations.  Among  its  leading  members  were 
Salmon  P.  Chase,  Charles  Sumner,  Preston  King,  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  Benjamin  F.  Butler  of  New  York,  Joshua 
R.  Giddings,  and  many  others  scarcely  less  distinguished. 

This  memorable  convention,  made  up  of  many  thousands 
of  active,  intelligent,  zealous  men,  exerted  a  great  influence 
in  advancing  the  cause  of  freedom.  Its  declaration  of  prin 
ciples  was  bold  and  independent.  Disclaiming  any  power 
to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  states,  it  declared  that  Con 
gress  possessed  and  should  exercise  the  right  of  prohibiting 
slavery  in  all  the  territories.  To  the  demand  of  the  South 
for  more  slave  states  and  more  slave  territory,  its  answer  was 
clear  and  categorical,  "  No  more  slave  states  and  no  slave 
territory." 

The  leaders  of  this  free  soil  party  were  made  up  of 
ardent,  enthusiastic  democrats  and  whigs,  active  and  zealous 
against  the  encroachments  of  slavery ;  and  of  the  "Old 


THE  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT.  105 

•Guard."  as  they  called  themselves,  who  had  organized  and 
led  the  anti-slavery  and  liberty  parties;  and  with  these 
were  many  personal  friends  of  Van  Buren,  indignant  at,  and 
determined  to  revenge  his  sacrifice  by  the  slave  power. 
They  were  determined  by  all  means  to  defeat  General  Cass. 
The  canvass  against  the  old  parties  was  conducted  with  a 
zeal,  an  eloquence,  an  ability  of  speech  and  of  the  pen,  never 
surpassed.  It  was  the  romance  and  poetry  of  politics,  the 
religion  of  patriotism. 

John  Van  Buren,  the  son  of  the  late  President,  then  in  the 
meridian  of  his  power,  canvassed  most  of  the  free  states,  and 
brought  into  the  discussion  an  indignant  personal  feeling 
towards  those  who  had  "done  his  father  to  death."  He 
possessed  a  fiery  eloquence,  a  scathing  wit  and  sarcasm, 
which  rendered  him  a  great  popular  favorite  and  secured  for 
him  a  most  brilliant  national  reputation.  Each  free  state 
had  its  great  popular  leaders,  and  the  people  turned  out  in 
vast  numbers  to  listen  to  eloquence,  inspired  by  all  the  fervor 
and  poetry  of  liberty,  and  the  wrongs  and  cruelties  of 
slavery.  John  P.  Hale,  Charles  Sumner,  Henry  Wilson  in 
New  England,  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  William  C.  Bryant, 
Preston  King  and  John  A.  Dix  in  New  York,  Salmon  P. 
Chase  and  Joshua  R.  Giddings  of  Ohio,  and  David  Wilmot 
of  Pennsylvania,  were  among  the  most  active  and  ardent  in 
the  contest.  Although  the  ticket  carried  no  electoral  vote, 
it  received  a  very  large  popular  support,  especially  in  New 
England,  New  York,  Ohio,  and  the  Northwest,  and  it 
defeated  the  election  of  Cass.  General  Taylor  received  the 
•  support  of  many  earnest  anti-slavery  whigs.  Among  them 
were  William  H.  Seward,  Horace  Greeley,  and  he  who  was, 
by  and  by,  to  lead  the  anti- slavery  party  to  victory — Abra 
ham  Lincoln. 

Meanwhile  the  whig  and  democratic  leaders,  alarmed 
by  the  rapid  growth  of  this  new  and  vigorous  party,  under 
took  again  to  settle  the  slavery  question  by  compromise. 
When  Congress  met  in  December,  1849,  the  slavery  issue 
confronted  its  members.  The  United  States  had  acquired 


106  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

from  Mexico,  Upper  and  Lower  California  and  New  Mexico. 
The  Wilmot  proviso  excluding  slavery  had  twice  passed  the 
House  of  Representatives,  but  had  been  as  often  rejected  by 
the  Senate.  The  slave  power  had  secured  a  cession  of  the 
territory,  but  the  extension  of  slavery  into  it  was  not  yet 
secure.  Fourteen  free  states  had  adopted  resolutions  pro 
testing  against  its  extension.  The  slaveholders,  fearing  the 
result  of  a  struggle  in  Congress,  attempted  to  frustrate  Con 
gressional  action  by  sending  out  emissaries  to  California  to 
organize  a  slave  state.  After  the  inauguration  of  General 
Taylor,  in  March,  1849,  Thomas  Butler  King,  a  whig,  and 
a  warm  advocate  of  slavery,  and  Senator  Gwynne,  of  Missis 
sippi,  representing  the  democratic  party,  went  to  California 
and  sought  to  get  up  a  state  constitution  which  should  secure 
and  protect  slavery.  Slaves  were  already  there.  Mr.  King 
declared:  "We  can  not  settle  this  question  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  We  look  to  you  to  settle  it  by 
becoming  a  state." 

The  friends  of  freedom  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  conti 
nent  had  not  much  hope  of  success  in  the  Constitutional 
Convention  of  California.  They  rather  expected  to  be 
compelled  to  make  the  fight  in  Congress  on  the  admission 
of  that  territory  as  a  slave  state.  There  was  then  no  tele 
graph  spanning  the  continent,  and  no  railroad  to  the  Pacific, 
and  mails  were  slow  and  tedious.  Few  more  thrilling  mes 
sages  from  that  distant  shore  were  ever  received  than  that 
which  told  that  the  new  constitution  excluded  slavery^  It 
was  the  prelude,  heralding  the  death  of  the  system.  The 
miners  and  laborers  of  California,  who  had  flocked  there  in 
great  numbers,  would  not  tolerate  the  competition  of  the 
slaveholder  with  his  gang  of  slaves,  and  they,  uniting  with 
those  who  were  opposed  to  slavery  from  conviction,  secured 
by  constitutional  provision  the  exclusion  of  slavery,  and 
now,  with  her  free  constitution,  California  presented  herself 
at  the  capital  for  admission  into  the  Union. 

This  was  a  surprise  to  the  slaveholders,  and  they,  who 
would  have  welcomed  her  as  a  slave  state,  now  wheeled 


THE    IRREPRESSIBLE   CONFLICT.  107 

about  and  refused  her  admission.  Thus  another  issue  was 
added  to  the  grave  questions  growing  out  of  slavery.  After 
long  debate,  Mr.  Clay,  who  had  carried  through  Congress 
the  Missouri  Compromise,  reported  a  series  of  measures  by 
which  he  and  his  associates  hoped  to  settle  the  slavery 
agitation.  California  was  to  be  admitted  as  a  free  state. 
Territorial  governments  were  to  be  established  in  New 
Mexico  and  Utah,  without  attaching  to  them  the  proviso 
excluding  slavery.  The  claim  of  Texas  to  nearly  ninety 
thousand  square  miles  of  territory  north  of  36°,  30',  and 
thus  made  free  by  the  Missouri  Compromise,  was  to  be 
recognized,  and  slavery  extended  over  it.  Ten  millions  of 
dollars  were  to  be  paid  to  Texas  for  her  relinquishment  of 
New  Mexico.  The  slave  trade  was  to  be  abolished  at  the 
national  capital,  but  a  new  fugitive  slave  law,  cruel  and 
stringent  in  its  provisions,  was  to  be  enacted. 

These  measures,  by  a  combination  of  the  leaders  of  both 
great  parties,  were  finally  forced  through  Congress.  Mr. 
Webster  made  them  the  occasion  of  his  celebrated  yth  of 
March  speech,  and  now  the  leaders  said:  "There  shall  be 
no  more  agitation,  these  measures  are  a  finality,  and  we  will 
have  peace,"  and  they  drew  up  and  signed  a  paper  declar 
ing  this,  and  pledging  one  another  to  oppose  any  man  who 
should  not  so  regard  them.  But  they  soon  learned  that  the 
conflict  between  slavery  and  freedom  was  irrepressible, 
inevitable,  and  must  go  on  until  one  or  the  other  should 
triumph.  In  this  Lincoln  was  wiser  than  Webster,  and  more 
sagacious  than  Clay,  who  in  early  life  had  been  his  great 
leader. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  KANSAS. 

STEPHEN  ARNOLD  DOUGLAS. —  REPEAL  OF  THE  MISSOURI  COMPRO 
MISE. —  THE  NEBRASKA  BILL. —  CONDITION  OF  MATTERS  IN  KAN 
SAS. —  LINCOLN  COMES  FORWARD  AS  THE  CHAMPION  OF  FREE 
DOM. —  SPEECHES  AT  SPRINGFIELD  AND  PEORIA. —  ELECTION  OF 
TRUMBULL  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATE. 

THE  33d  Congress  convened  December  5th,  1853.  The 
election  of  1852  had  resulted  in  the  choice  of  Franklin 
Pierce  as  President,  General  Scott,  the  whig  candidate, 
receiving  the  votes  of  only  four  states.  The  celebrated  com 
promise  measures  of  1850,  already  described,  were,  it  was 
claimed,  endorsed  by  the  election  of  Pierce,  and  the  leaders 
of  the  slavery  party  boasted  that  the  slavery  question  was 
settled,  and  that  the  abolitionists  and  agitators  were  crushed 
to  rise  no  more.  The  territory  out  of  which  the  great 
states  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  were  to  grow,  was  then 
becoming  settled,  and  the  people  were  asking  for  the  organ 
ization  of  territorial  governments.  Throughout  all  this  ter 
ritory,  slavery  had  been  prohibited  by  the  time-honored  Mis 
souri  Compromise. 

The  great  senatorial  leaders,  Webster,  Clay,  Calhoun,  and 
Benton,  had  left  the  theatre  of  their  renown.  In  the  Senate 
there  were  three  only,  who  were  distinctly  anti-slavery  men, 
or  "  free  soilers,"  as  they  were  called — Charles  Sumner, 
Salmon  P.  Chase  and  John  P.  Hale.  Edward  Everett  occu 
pied  the  seat  of  Webster,  William  H.  Seward  was  the  leader 
•of  the  anti-slavery  whigs,  but  perhaps  the  most  prominent 

108 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  KANSAS.  109 

figure  then  in  the  Senate  was  the  young  and  ambitious  mem 
ber  from  Illinois,  Stephen  Arnold  Douglas. 

Douglas  was  then  not  quite  forty  years  old,  but  had 
already  become  the  idol  of  his  party,  and  was  then  in  the 
zenith  of  his  popularity.  He  had  had  a  brilliant  career  in 
Illinois  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  since  his  elec 
tion  to  the  Senate  in  1847,  had  been  constantly  rising  in 
influence  and  power.  He  was  especially  the  favorite  of  the 
young  democracy,  who  looked  upon  him  as  certain,  and  at 
no  distant  day,  of  the  presidency.  He  had  a  frank,  open, 
cordial,  familiar  manner ;  at  the  same  time  he  was  bold, 
decided,  and  magnetic,  possessing  the  qualities  which  made 
a  popular  leader  in  a  degree  hardly  surpassed  by  any  other 
man  in  American  history. 

Possessed  of  a  retentive  memory,  without  being  a  scholar 
and  without  much  study,  by  conversation  and  otherwise,  his 
mind  had  become  well  stored  with  practical  knowledge,  and 
he  was  well  informed  in  regard  to  the  history  and  politics  of 
the  country.  He  did  not  forget  anything  he  had  ever  read 
or  seen  or  heard,  and  he  had  the  happy  faculty,  so  useful  to  the 
politician,  of  always  remembering  faces  and  names.  His 
resources  were  fully  at  his  command,  so  that  he  was  always 
ready.  Although  he  lacked  humor  and  wit,  yet  as  a  speaker 
he  had  few  equals,  either  in  the  Senate  or  on  the  stump.  He 
had  great  fluency;  he  seized  the  strong  points  of  his  case,  and 
enforced  them  with  much  vigor.  His  denunciation  and 
invective  were  extremely  powerful. 

He  was  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Territories,  and 
now  had  the  audacity  to  introduce,  in  his  bill  organizing  the 
territories  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  a  provision  respecting 
the  prohibition  of  slavery.  The  proposition  started  the  peo 
ple  of  the  free  states  like  the  fire-bell  at  midnight,  and 
opened  again  the  question  of  slavery,  with  a  violence  and 
bitterness  never  before  equalled.  The  motives  which  led 
Douglas  to  introduce  this  measure  were  denounced  with  the 
greatest  severity.  He  was  accused  of  being  bribed  by  the 
promise  of  the  presidency  to  break  down  this  barrier  against 


HO  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  extension  of  slavery.  It  was  charged  that  the  leaders  of 
the  slavery  party  dazzled  his  eyes  and  bewildered  his  judg 
ment  by  holding  up  to  his  eager  ambition  the  White  House. 
But  whatever  his  motives,  the  act  was  political  suicide  to  him 
and  to  slavery  itself;  it  was  the  beginning  of  the  end.  From 
that  time  on,  the  conflict  raged  with  ever  increasing  force, 
until  slavery  was  destroyed  in  the  flames  which  itself  had 
kindled.  It  must  be  conceded  that  Douglas  carried  on  the 
conflict  with  a  nerve  and  vigor,  a  courage  and  ability,  worthy 
of  a  nobler  cause. 

Senators  Seward,  Chase,  Sumner,  and  Hale  led  the  oppo 
sition  to  the  bill.  The  speech  of  Mr.  Seward  against  it  was 
able,  calm,  and  philosophic.  After  an  historical  review  of 
the  whole  question,  he  spoke  of  the  uselessness  of  all  efforts 
to  stifle  the  love  of  liberty  and  hatred  of  slavery.  "  You 
may,"  said  he,  "  drive  the  slavery  question  out  of  these  halls 
to-day,  but  it  will  revisit  them  to-morrow.  You  buried  the 
Wilmot  proviso  here  in  1850,  and  here  it  is  again  to-day, 
stalking  through  these  halls  incomplete  armor." 
"  Slavery,"  he  continued,  "is  an  eternal  struggle  between 
truth  and  error,  right  and  wrong."  *  *  *  "You  may 
sooner,  by  act  of  Congress,  compel  the  sea  to  suppress  its 
upheavings,  and  the  earth  to  extinguish  its  internal  fires,  than 
oblige  the  human  mind  to  cease  its  inquiries,  and  the  human 
heart  to  desist  from  its  throbbings."  In  its  last  maddened 
throes,  this  early,  able  champion  of  liberty  was  struck  down 
by  the  hand  of  slavery,  the  same  hand  which  assassinated 
Lincoln,  but  not  until  he  had  lived  as  Secretary  of  State, 
officially  to  proclaim,  that  "  slavery  no  longer  exists  "  in  the 
republic. 

At  five  o'clock,  on  the  3d  of  March,  1854,  the  Nebraska 
bill  passed  the  Senate.  On  its  passage,  Senator  Seward 
said:  "  The  shifting  sands  of  compromise  are  passing  from 
under  my  feet."  With  characteristic  hopefulness,  he 
exclaimed:  "Through  all  the  darkness  and  gloom  of  the 
present  hour,  bright  stars  are  breaking  that  inspire  me  with 
hope,  and  excite  me  to  persevere."  Sam  Houston,  of  Texas, 


Ofl» 

^ssv^ 

THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  KANSAS. 


was  one  of  the  two  senators  from  the  slave  states,  who  vo 
against  the  bill.1  In  concluding  his  speech  against  it,  Hous 
ton  said:  "Yon  proud  symbol"  (pointing  to  the  eagle), 
"  above  your  head  remains  enshrouded  in  black,  as  if  deplor 
ing  the  misfortune  that  has  fallen  upon  us,  or  as  a  fearful 
omen  of  the  future  calamities  which  await  our  nation  in  the 
event  that  this  bill  becomes  a  law." 

In  the  House  of  Representatives,  the  struggle  over  the 
passage  of  the  bill  was  renewed  with  still  greater  violence. 
During  the  struggle  the  House  remained  in  continuous  ses 
sion  for  more  than  thirty-four  hours.  Colonel  Benton,  then 
a  member  of  the  House,  and  representing  St.  Louis,  vigor 
ously  opposed  the  bill.  Having  gone  out  for  refreshments, 
he  was,  on  a  call  of  the  House,  arrested  and  brought  to  the 
bar  by  the  sergeant-at-arms,  to  offer  an  excuse  for  his 
absence.  The  venerable  old  man  said:  "  It  was  neither  on 
account  of  age  nor  infirmity  that  I  was  absent."  *  *  * 
"  I  went  away  animo  revertandi,  intending  to  return,  re 
freshed  and  invigorated,  and  take  my  share  and  sit  it  out; 
to  tell  the  exact  truth,  to  husband  some  strength  for  a  pinch 
when  it  should  come,  for  I  did  not  think  we  had  got  to  the 
tightest  place." 

Benton  was  indignant  at  the  violation  of  the  compact;  he 
saw  the  danger  which  would  follow,  and  resisted  with  all  the 
ability  and  pluck  of  his  best  days.2 

On  the  8th  of  May,  1854,  the  bill  finally  passed  the 
House.  Salvos  of  artillery  from  Capitol  Hill  announced  the 
triumph  of  the  slave  power,  but  the  boom  of  these  cannon 
awakened  echoes  and  aroused  the  people,  filling  them  with 
indignation,  in  every  valley  and  on  every  hillside  in  the  free 
states.  The  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  shocked 
the  moral  sense,  and  was  everywhere  regarded  in  the  free 

1.  John  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  was  the  other. 

2.  I  am  indebted  to  my  late  colleague  in  Congress,  the  Hon.  E.  B.  Washburne, 
for  much  of  the  material  and  language  of  the  account  of  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise.    He  was  an  able  and  fearless  actor  in  these  exciting  scenes,  and  has 
written  a  most  graphic  sketch  of  them. 


]  I  2  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

states,  not  only  as  a  humiliation,  but  as  a  gross  violation  of 
faith.  Thoughtful  men  realized  that  the  days  of  concession, 
of  mutual  compromise  and  forbearance  had  passed,  and  that 
the  struggle  between  freedom  and  slavery  was  irresistible 
and  at  hand. 

The  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  removed  the 
barrier  against  the  extension  of  slavery  over  an  area  equal 
in  extent  to  that  of  the  entire  thirteen  original  states.  This 
territory  was  now  open,  and  the  leaders  of  the  slaveholders 
determined  to  occupy  and  control  it,  and  especially  the 
southern  portion,  called  Kansas.  The  people  of  the  free 
states,  betrayed  and  defeated  at  Washington,  determined  to 
prevent  this.  Douglas  and  a  large  portion  of  the  demo 
cratic  party  defended  the  repeal,  on  the  ground  that  the 
people  of  each  territory  should  determine  for  themselves 
whether  they  would  exclude  or  protect  slavery.  This  doc 
trine,  known  as  "popular  sovereignty,"  or  "squatter  sover 
eignty,"  became  a  watchword  of  that  party.  Each  section 
resolved  to  colonize  and  settle  Kansas;  the  one  to  make  it 
a  free,  and  the  other  a  slave  state.  The  slave  states  had  the 
immense  advantage  of  proximity.  Kansas  was  directly  west 
of  Missouri,  and  the  only  direct  route  to  it  was  across  Mis 
souri,  and  up  her  great  river  to  its  border.  Western  Mis 
souri  was  full  of  slaves,  and  their  masters  could  not  tolerate 
the  idea  of  a  free  state  just  west  of  them. 

Under  the  lead  of  General  Atchison,  then  a  senator,  and 
formerly  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  the  slave 
holders  organized  secret  societies,  known  as  "  Blue  Lodges," 
and  by  force  of  arms  endeavored  to  seize  and  hold  Kansas. 
With  arms  in  their  hands,  their  organized  bands  marched  in 
military  array  into  that  territory,  marked  out  their  claims, 
and,  taking  their  negroes  with  them,  declared  that  slavery 
already  existed  there,  and  proclaimed  "  Lynch  law  "  for  all 
abolitionists.  In  New  England  and  in  the  Northwest,  and 
elsewhere  in  the  free  states,  "  Emigrant  aid  societies  "  were 
organized,  with  a  view  of  aiding  to  settle  Kansas  with  free 
labor.  Settlers  were  furnished  with  mills,  farming  imple- 


THE   STRUGGLE   FOR   KANSAS.  113 

ments,  domestic  animals,  seed,  and  cheap  dwelling  houses; 
school  houses  and  churches  were  also  supplied  to  the  emi 
grants.  This  property  soon  began  to  be  seized  by  the  slave 
party  in  its  passage  up  the  Missouri  river.  Settlers  and 
their  families  were  arrested,  maltreated,  and  their  property 
plundered  or  destroyed,  and  they  were  compelled  by  force 
to  turn  back.  But  with  pluck  and  persistence  they  turned 
aside,  and  with  horses  and  ox  teams,  made  the  long,  weary,, 
overland  journey  through  Iowa  to  the  disputed  territory. 
Each  party  was  striving  to  found  a  state.  The  slavehold 
ers  had,  as  has  been  stated,  the  great  advantage  of  close 
proximity,  and,  under  the  lead  of  Atchison  and  Stringfellow, 
sent  their  organized  bands,  armed  with  revolvers  and  bowie 
knives,  to  build  up  the  new  commonwealth  with  slaves  and 
whiskey.  In  the  long  run  it  was  found  to  be  bad  material. 
The  free  state  emigrant,  starting  often  from  a  distance  of 
hundreds  of  miles,  took  with  him  his  family,  his  farming 
tools,  school  books  for  his  children,  his  Bible,  and  often  the 
farm  house,  school  house,  and  little  church  framed  at  home, 
'and  by  and  by,  he  took  also  his  Sharp's  rifle,, which  he  quickly 
learned  to  use  with  skill.  Under  the  lead  of  John  Brown, 
known  in  Kansas  as  Ossawatomie  Brown,  Charles  Robinson, 
Generals  Pomeroy  and  Lane,  and  others,  farms  were  opened, 
and  villages  and  settlements  were  located  and  built  up.  The 
negro  in  Kansas  did  not  long  remain  a  slave.  The  grog 
shop,  the  bowie  knife  and  the  revolver  could  not  permanently 
compete  with  the  school  house,  free  labor,  order,  and  thrift. 
But  the  struggle  was  long,  and  for  a  time  doubtful.  On  the 
-side  of  slavery  was  all  the  influence  of  the  United  States 
officials,  the  state  government  of  Missouri,  its  border  militia, 
ever  ready  to  make  a  raid  into  Kansas  for  plunder,  violence, 
and  destruction.  The  free  state  party  had  the  aid  of  the 
northern  press,  Yankee  enterprise  and  persistence,  and  the 
rough  and  rude  sense  of  justice,  which  characterizes  the 
pioneer  of  the  West.  The  slave  party,  by  the  aid  of  votes 
imported  from  Missouri,  the  Missouri  militia,  and  the  Federal 
officers,  held  for  a  time  the  nominal  government,  and  perpe- 


I  I  4  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

trated  a  series  of  outrages,  frauds,  and  ballot-stuffings  to 
secure  a  constitution  establishing  slavery.  But  the  free  state 
men  soon  outnumbered  their  wandering,  plundering,  whiskey 
drinking  adversaries.  The  slaves  ran  away,  and  found  secur 
ity  in  the  free  state  settlements  or  beyond  the  border. 

Territorial  governor  after  governor  was  appointed  by 
Presidents  Pierce  and  Buchanan,  and  resigned  or  was 
removed,  finding  the  task  of  imposing  slavery  on  Kansas  too 
difficult.  Governor  Geary,  one  of  these,  became  disgusted 
and  indignant  at  the  outrages  of  the  slave  party,  and  gives 
this  picture  of  the  situation.  He  says  : 

"  I  reached  Kansas  and  entered  upon  the  discharge  of  my  official 
•duties  in  the  most  gloomy  hour  of  her  history.  Desolation  and  ruin 
reigned  on  every  hand  ;  homes  and  firesides  were  deserted  ;  the  smoke 
of  burning  dwellings  darkened  the  atmosphere  ;  women  and  children, 
driven  from  their  habitations,  wandered  over  the  prairies,  and  among  the 
woodlands,  or  sought  refuge  and  protection  from  the  Indian  tribes.  The 
highways  were  infested  with  predatory  bands,  while  the  towns  were  for 
tified  and  garrisoned  by  armies  of  conflicting  partisans,  excited  almost 
to  frenzy,  and  determined  on  mutual  extermination." 

Such  was  the  struggle  in  Kansas  upon  the  slavery  ques 
tion.  It  was  like  the  great  civil  war,  of  which  it  was  the 
type  and  prophetic  prelude,  a  contest  between  barbarism  and 
civilization.  Whenever  anything  like  a  fair  vote  of  the  act 
ual  settlers  could  be  obtained,  the  free  state  men  had  large 
majorities.  The  story  of  this  struggle  between  freedom  and 
slavery  ;  between  fraud,  violence,  and  outrage  on  the  one 
side,  and  heroic  firmness,  energy,  and  determination  on  the 
other,  was  carried  all  over  the  land,  and  made  a  profound 
impression  upon  the  American  people.  It  was  amidst  these 
scenes  that  John  Brown  of  Ossawatomie  was  prepared,  by 
the  murder  of  his  son,  for  his  wild  crusade  against  slavery 
in  Virginia.  It  was  here  that  the  heroic  Lyon  and  Hunter 
learned  to  hate  that  institution.  The  plains  of  Kansas  were 
red  with  the  blood  of  her  martyrs  to  liberty  ;  her  hills  and 
valleys  were  black  with  the  charred  remains  of  her  burned 
and  devastated  towns,  villages,  and  cities,  attesting  alike  the 
heroic  constancy  of  her  people  to  freedom,  and  the  savage 


THE   STRUGGLE   FOR    KANSAS.  I  1 5 

barbarity  of  the  slave  power.  When  the  convulsions  of  the 
great  national  conflict  began  to  shake  the  land,  Kansas  was 
the  rock  which  rolled  back  the  tide  of  the  slave  conspirators. 
All  honor  to  Kansas.  She  successfully  withstood  the  slave 
power,  backed  by  the  Federal  Government.  The  struggle 
was  watched  by  the  people  everywhere,  with  the  most  intense 
solicitude,  and  it  nerved  them  to  a  still  firmer  determination 
to  resist  the  encroachment  of  the  slaveholders. 

The  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  roused  Lincoln 
from  retirement,  and  stimulated  him  to  the  utmost  exertion 
of  his  powers.  He  now  prepared  to  enter  the  arena  as  the 
.great  champion  of  freedom.  He  had  bided  his  time.  He 
had  waited  until  the  harvest  was  ripe.  With  unerring  saga 
city  he  realized  that  the  day  for  the  triumph  of  freedom  was 
.at  hand.  He  entered  upon  the  conflict  with  the  deepest  con 
viction  that  the  perpetuity  of  the  republic  required  the 
extinction  of  slavery.  So  adopting  as  his  motto,  "  A  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand,"  he  girded  himself  for 
the  contest.  He  sought  to  take  with  him,  bodily,  the  old 
whig  party  of  Illinois,  into  the  new  organization  called  the 
republican  party.  He  was  to  build  up  and  consolidate  the 
heterogeneous  mass  which  composed  the  new  party.  The 
years  from  1854  to  1860,  were,  on  his  part,  years  of  constant, 
active,  and  unwearied  effort.  He  had,  in  1850,  declared  to 
his  old  partner,  Stuart,  that  the  slavery  question  could  not 
be  compromised.  He  was  now  to  become  the  recognized 
leader  of  the  anti-slavery  party  in  the  Northwest,  and  in  all 
the  valley  of  the  Mississippi.  His  position  in  the  state  of 
.  Illinois  was  central  and  commanding.  He  who  could  lead 
the  republican  party  of  that  state  and  the  surrounding 
states,  would  be  pretty  sure  to  lead  that  party  in  the  Union. 
Lincoln  was  a  practical  statesman,  never  attempting  the 
impossible — but  seeking  to  do  the  best  practicable  under  sur 
rounding  circumstances.  If  he  was  sagacious  in  selecting 
the  time,  he  was  also  skillful  in  the  single  issue  he  made.  He 
took  his  stand  with  the  fathers  of  the  republic,  against  the 
extension  of  slavery.  He  knew  that  prohibition  in  the  ter- 


I  I  6  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ritories  would  result  in  no  more  slave  states,  and  no  slave 
territory.  And  now,  when  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  shattered  all  parties  into  fragments,  and  he  came 
forward  to  build  up  the  free  soil  party,  he  threw  into  the 
conflict  all  his  strength  and  vigor,  and  devoted  his  life  to  the 
struggle.  From  this  time,  Lincoln  was  to  guide  the  whirl 
wind  and  direct  the  storm.  He  realized  that  the  conflict 
was  unavoidable  and  inevitable.  The  conviction  of  his  duty 
was  deep  and  sincere.  Hence  he  plead  the  cause  of  liberty 
with  an  energy,  ability,  and  power,  which  rapidly  gained  for 
him  a  national  reputation.  Conscious  of  the  greatness  of 
his  cause,  inspired  by  a  genuine  love  of  liberty,  and  animated 
and  made  strong  by  the  moral  sublimity  of  the  conflict,  he 
solemnly  announced  his  determination  to  speak  for  freedom 
and  against  slavery,  until,  in  his  own  words,  wherever  the 
Federal  Government  has  power,  u  the  sun  shall  shine,  the 
rain  shall  fall,  and  the  wind  shall  blow,  upon  no  man  who 
goes  forth  to  unrequited  toil." 

It  is  difficult  fully  to  realize  or  describe  the  gravity  of 
the  situation  or  the  dignity  of  his  topics.  We  can  do  so  only 
by  comparing  them  with  great  efforts  of  the,  orators  of  the 
past,  and  who,  even  of  them,  had  a  theme  so  grand  ?  When 
Demosthenes  sought  to  rouse  the  Athenians  against  Philip, 
the  fate  of  his  country  hung  on  the  issue,  and  the  result  was 
that  great  series  of  orations  which  are  read  with  admiration 
to  this  day.  When  Cicero  exposed  and  denounced  the 
treason  of  Catiline,  the  Roman  orator  uttered  words  which 
yet  echo  through  the  Roman  forum.  When  Edmund  Burke 
and  Sheridan  plead  the  cause  of  the  millions  of  India  before 
the  House  of  Lords,  on  the  impeachment  of  Warren  Hast 
ings,  the  people  of  the  world  were  spectators,  and  it  taxed 
the  graphic  power  of  Macaulay  to  the  utmost  to  picture  the 
scene,1  but  when  Lincoln  plead  the  cause  of  liberty,  not  only 
the  freedom  of  four  millions  of  slaves,  but  the  fate  and 
perpetuity  of  the  Union  and  the  republic  hung  on  the 
result.  His  speeches  were  great  battles  fought  and  won... 

1.  See  Warren  Hastings,  by  Macaulay. 


THE   STRUGGLE   FOR    KANSAS.  117 

Whole  counties  were  sometimes  revolutionized  by  one  of  his 
great  arguments. 

From  1854  to  1860  the  conflict  raged,  and  then  the 
defeated  party,  beaten  at  the  ballot-box,  appealed  from  the 
forum  of  debate  to  the  battlefield  of  arms.  Let  us  try  to 
tell  the  story  of  this  prolonged  debate.  When,  late  in  Sep 
tember,  1854,  Douglas,  after  the  passage  of  the  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  bill,  returned  to  Illinois,  he  was  received  with  a 
storm  of  indignation  which  would  have  crushed  a  man  of 
less  power  and  will.  A  bold  and  courageous  leader,  con 
scious  of  his  personal  power  over  his  party,  he  bravely  met 
the  storm  and  sought  to  allay  it.  In  October,  1854,  the 
State  Fair  being  then  in  session  at  Springfield,  and  there 
being  a  great  crowd  of  people  from  all  parts  of  the  state, 
Douglas  went  there  and  made  an  elaborate  and  able  speech 
in  defense  of  the  repeal.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  called  upon  by 
all  the  opponents  of  this  repeal  to  reply,  and  he  did  so  with 
a  power  which  he  never  surpassed,  and  which  he  had  never 
before  equalled.  All  other  issues  which  had  divided  the 
people  were  as  chaff,  and  were  scattered  to  the  winds  by  the 
intense  agitation  which  arose  on  the  question  of  extending 
slavery,  not  merely  into  free  territory,  but  into  territory 
which  had  been  declared  free  by  solemn  compact. 

Douglas  had  a  hard  and  difficult  task  in  attempting  to 
defend  his  action  in  the  repeal  of  this  compact.  But  he 
spoke  with  his  usual  great  ability.  He  had  lately  come  from 
the  discussions  of  the  Senate  Chamber,  where  he  had  car 
ried  the  measure  against  the  utmost  efforts  of  Chase,  Seward, 
Sumner,  and  others,  and  he  was  somewhat  arrogant  and 
overbearing.  Lincoln  was  present  and  listened  to  this 
speech,  and  at  its  close  it  was  announced  that  he  would  on 
the  following  day  reply.  This  reply  occupied  more  than 
three  hours  in  delivery,  and  duVing  all  that  time  Lincoln 
held  the  vast  crowd  in  the  deepest  attention.  No  report  of 
this  speech  was  made,  but  the  arguments  and  topics  were 
substantially  the  same  as  in  the  speech  he  delivered  at 
Peoria  on  Monday,  the  i6th  of  October  thereafter,  and 


Il8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

which  Lincoln  wrote  out  afterwards,  it  being  published  in 
the  "  Sangamon  Journal."  As  printed  it  lacks  the  fire  and 
vehemence  of  the  extemporaneous  speech,  but  as  an  argu 
ment  against  the  extension  of  slavery  it  has  no  equal  in  the 
anti-slavery  literature  of  the  country.  The  effect  of  the 
Springfield  speech  upon  his  hearers  was  wonderful.  Hern- 
don,  his  partner,  says:  "The  house  (it  was  spoken  in  the 
State  House)  was  as  still  as  death.  Lincoln's  whole  heart 
was  in  the  subject.  He  quivered  with  feeling  and  emotion."" 
Sometimes  his  emotions  "came  near  stifling  his  utterance." 
Loud  and  long  continued  applause  greeted  his  telling  points. 
At  the  conclusion,  every  person  who  had  heard  Lincoln  felt 
that  the  speech  was  unanswerable.  The  reader  who  peruses 
the  Peoria  speech  to-day  will  so  declare.  Douglas  himself 
felt  that  he  was  crushed.  At  the  close  of  Lincoln's  speech 
he  attempted  a  reply,  buc  he  was  excited,  angry,  loud,  and 
furious,  and  after  a  short  time  closed  by  saying  that  he 
would  continue  his  reply  in  the  evening,  but  he  did  not 
return  to  the  State  House,  and  left  the  city  without  resuming 
his  discourse. 

Lincoln  followed  Douglas  to  Peoria.  There  Douglas 
spoke  for  three  hours  in  the  afternoon,  and  Lincoln  again 
followed  in  the  evening  and  spoke  for  three  hours  also. 
Here,  as  in  Springfield,  he  carried  the  audience  with  him, 
and  Douglas  was  more  disconcerted  by  the  vigor  and  ability 
of  Lincoln's  replies  in  these  two  great  discussions  than  on 
any  other  occasion  of  his  life.  The  consciousness  of  being 
in  the  wrong  probably  contributed  to  this  result.  There  was 
something  approaching  the  sublime  in  this  intellectual  con 
flict.  Lincoln  was  then  in  the  prime  of  life,  of  great  physical 
and  mental  power,  and  perfectly  master  of  his  subject. 

Douglas  felt  that  he  was  beaten,  and  asked  Lincoln  not 
to  follow  or  reply  to  him  any  more.  He  said  :  "  Lincoln, 
you  understand  this  question  of  prohibiting  slavery  in  the 
territories  better  than  all  the  opposition  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States.  I  cannot  make  anything  by  debating  it  with 
you.  You,  Lincoln,  have  here  and  at  Springfield,  given  me 


THE    STRUGGLE   FOR   KANSAS,  119 

more  trouble  than  all  the  opposition  in  the  Senate  com 
bined."  Douglas  then  appealed  to  Lincoln's  magnanimity 
and  generosity,  and  proposed  that  each  should  go  home, 
and  that  there  should  be  no  more  joint  discussions,  to  which 
Lincoln  acceded.1  There  were  then  no  more  joint  discus 
sions,  although  Lincoln  had  started  out  with  the  purpose  of 
following  and  replying  to  Douglas  whenever  he  spoke,  and 
a  joint  discussion  had  been  arranged  for  at  Lacon.  Both  went 
to  Lacon,  and  neither  spoke. 

Lincoln,  in  the  Peoria  speech,  gave  a  full  history  of  the 
slavery  question  from  the  organization  of  the  government, 
tracing  the  policy  of  prohibiting  it  in  the  territories  to  the 
author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

"  Thus,"  said  he,  "  with  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence,  the  policy  of  prohibiting  slavery  in  new  territory  originated.  Thus, 
away  back  of  the  constitution,  in  the  pure,  fresh,  free  breath  of  the  Revo 
lution,  the  State  of  Virginia  and  the  National  Congress  put  that  policy 
into  practice.  Thus,  through  sixty  odd  of  the  best  years  of  the  republic 
did  that  policy  steadily  work  to  its  great  and  beneficent  end.  And  thus 
in  those  five  states,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  and  Wisconsin, 
with  their  five  millions  of  free,  enterprising  people,  we  have  before  us 
the  rich  fruits  of  this  policy."  *  * 

The  speech  is  distinguished  above  all  others  by  its  full,  ac 
curate,  and  exhaustive  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  legisla 
tion  relating  to  slavery.  He  demonstrates  that  under  the 
policy  of  prohibition  there  had  been  peace,  while  the  repeal 
of  prohibition  had  brought  agitation.  He  sums  up: 

"  Slavery  is  founded  in  the  selfishness  of  man's  nature,  opposition 
to  it  in  his  love  of  justice.  These  principles  are  in  eternal  antagonism; 
and  when  brought  into  collision  so  fiercely  as  slavery  extension  brings 
them,  shocks  and  throes  and  convulsions  must  ceaselessly  follow.  Re 
peal  the  Missouri  Compromise — repeal  all  compromise — repeal  the  Dec 
laration  of  Independence — repeal  all  past  history,  you  still  cannot  repeal 
human  nature.  It  still  will  be  out  of  the  abundance  of  man's  heart  that 
he  will  declare  slavery  extension  is  wrong;  and  out  of  the  abundance  of 
his  mouth  he  will  continue  to  speak."  *  *  * 

1.  Such  is  the  statement,  in  substance,  of  W.  II.  Herndon.  See  Lamon's  Life  of 
Lincoln,  p.  358,  and  the  statement  of  B.  F.  Irwin.  Lincoln's  action  seems  strange, 
and  I  think  there  must  have  been  other  reasons  not  fully  disclosed. 


I2O  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  Some  Yankees  in  the  East  are  sending  emigrants  to  exclude  slav 
ery  from  it,  and,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  they  expect  the  question  to  be  de 
cided  by  voting  in  some  way  or  other.  But  the  Missourians  are  awake 
too.  They  are  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  contested  ground.  They 
hold  meetings  and  pass  resolutions,  in  which  not  the  slightest  allusion  to 
voting  is  made.  They  resolve  that  slavery  already  exists  in  the  territory; 
that  more  shall  go  there;  that  they  remaining  in  Missouri  will  protect  it, 
and  that  abolitionists  shall  be  hung  or  driven  away.  Through  all  this, 
bowie-knives  and  six-shooters  are  seen  plainly  enough,  but  never  a 
glimpse  of  the  ballot-box,  and  really  what  is  to  be  the  result  of  this? 
Each  party  within  having  numerous  and  determined  backers,  without,  is 
it  not  probable  that  the  contest  will  come  to  blows  and  bloodshed? 
Could  there  be  a  more  apt  invention  to  bring  about  a  collision  and  vio 
lence  on  the  slavery  question,  than  this  Nebraska  project?"  *  * 

He  urges  the  restoration  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  "  But," 
says  he,  "restore  the  compromise,  and  what  then?  We  thereby  restore 
the  national  faith,  the  national  confidence,  the  national  feeling  of 
brotherhood.  We  thereby  re-instate  the  spirit  of  concession  and  com 
promise — that  spirit  which  has  never  failed  us  in  past  perils,  and  which 
may  be  safely  trusted  for  all  the  future.  The  South  ought  to  join  in 
doing  this.  The  peace  of  the  Nation  is  dear  to  them,  as  to  us;  in  mem 
ories  of  the  past,  and  hopes  for  the  future,  they  share  as  largely  as  we." 

But,  says  he,  "  they  say  if  you  do  this  you  will  be  stand 
ing  with  the  abolitionists.  I  say  stand  with  anybody  that 
stands  right.  Stand  with  him  while  he  is  rig/it,  and  part 
with  him  when  he  goes  wrong" 

He  contrasted  the  position  of  the  founders  of  the  repub 
lic  towards  slavery,  with  that  now  assumed,  saying  : 

"Thus  we  see  the  plain,  unmistakable  spirit  of  that  early  age 
towards  slavery  was  hostility  to  the  principle,  and  toleration  only  by 
necessity.  But  now  it  is  to  be  transformed  into  a  '  sacred  right.'  Nebraska 
brings  it  forth,  places  it  on  the  high  road  to  extension  and  perpetuity, 
and  with  a  pat  on  its  back  says  to  it:  '  Go,  and  God  speed  you.'  Hence 
forth  it  is  to  be  the  chief  jewel  of  the  nation,  the  very  figure  head  of 
the  ship  of  state.  Little  by  little,  but  steadily  as  man's  march  to  the 
grave,  we  have  been  giving  the  old  for  the  new  faith.  Nearly  eighty  years 
ago  we  began  by  declaring  that  all  men  are  created  equal  ;  but  now  from 
that  beginning  we  have  run  down  to  that  other  declaration,  '  that  for 
some  men  to  enslave  others  is  a  sacred  right  of  self  government.'  " 

*  "In  our  greedy  chase  to  make  profit  of  the  negro,  let  us 
beware  lest  we  cancel  and  tear  to  pieces  even  the  white  man's  charter 
of  freedom." 


THE     STRUGGLE   FOR   KANSAS.  121 

On  another  occasion  Mr.  Lincoln  said:1  "Pharaoh's 
country  was  cursed  with  plagues,  and  his  hosts  were  drowned 
in  the  Red  Sea,  for  striving  to  retain  in  bondage  a  captive 
people  who  had  already  served  them  more  than  five  hundred 
years.  May  like  disaster  never  befall  us."  How  like  in  senti 
ment  to  the  paragraph  in  his  second  inaugural  address,  in  which 
he  said  :  "  If  God  wills  that  it  [the  war]  continues  until  all 
the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondsman's  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop 
of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash,  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn 
by  the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it 
must  be  said,  that  the  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true,  and 
righteous  altogether." 

When  Lincoln  made  this  Peoria  speech  he  was  an  obscure 
man.  ScarceTy  heard  of  out  of  Illinois,  his  audience  was  far 
inland,  and  away  from  the  great  cities,  where  reputation  and 
fame  are  acquired.  There  were  present  no  reporters  of  any 
great  metropolitan  papers,  to  take  down  the  speech  and 
spread  it  the  next  morning  by  the  thousand,  broadcast,  on 
the  breakfast  tables  of  the  voters.  There  were  no  admiring 
scholars,  with  wealth  and  appreciation,  to  put  it  in  pamphlet 
form,  and  scatter  it  by  the  hundred  thousand.  There  is  a 
single  copy  of  this  speech  in  an  obscure  newspaper,  and  it 
would  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  duplicate.  Had 
Charles  Sumner  made  the  speech  in  Faneuil  Hall,  all  New 
England  would,  the  next  morning,  have  read  and  admired 
it.  If  it  had  been  addressed  to  the  United  States  Senate  by 
Seward  or  Chase,  it  would  have  appeared  the  next  day  in 
the  leading  papers  of  Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia, 
Washington,  Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  and  Chicago.  Neverthe 
less,  from  this  time  on,  the  fame  of  the  prairie  orator  spread, 
and  could  be  no  longer  hemmed  in  by  state  lines. 

The  Congressional  election  of  that  year,  in  Illinois, 
resulted  in  the  election  of  four  democrats,  and  five  opposi 
tion  members  of  Congress,  and  the  State  Legislature  would 

1.  In  his  eulogy  of  Henry  Clay,  1852. 


122  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

have  been  completely  revolutionized  had  there  not  been  a 
large  number  of  democrats  in  the  State  Senate,  whose  terms 
of  office  had  not  expired.  The  opponents  of  the  Nebraska 
bill  had  in  the  House  of  Assembly  forty,  and  the  democrats, 
thirty-five.  In  the  Senate  there  were  seventeen  elected  as 
democrats,  and  eight  elected  as  opponents  of  the  Nebraska 
bill.  However,  three  of  those  elected  two  years  before  as 
democrats,  now  repudiated  Douglas  and  his  policy,  and  were 
ready  to  act  with  the  opposition,  at  least  so  far  as  to  aid  in  the 
election  to  the  United  States  Senate  of  an  anti- Nebraska  sen 
ator.  'J  These  were  Norman  B.  Judd,  of  Chicago,  Burton  C. 
Cook,  of  Ottawa,  and  John  M.  Palmer,  afterwards  Governor 
of  Illinois.  These  were  all  able  men,  and  skillful  politicians, 
and  with  their  votes  there  would  be  on  joint  ballot  a  majority 
of  two  against  Douglas. 

James  Shields,  the  colleague  of  Douglas  in  the  Senate,  and 
who  had  been  induced  by  Douglas's  great  personal  influence 
to  vote  for  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill,  was  a  candidate 
for  re-election.  Lincoln  had  led  the  opposition,  and  to  his 
efforts  the  great  revolution  in  the  state  was  largely  to  be 
attributed,  and  he  was  naturally  selected  as  the  candidate  for 
United  States  senator.  It  is  known  that  he  especially  desired 
the  office  of  senator.  In  a  letter  to  N.  B.  Judd,  written 
some  years  thereafter,  he  said  :  "  I  would  rather  have  a  full 
term  in  the  United  States  Senate  than  the  Presidency." 
When  the  Legislature  came  together,  it  was  generally 
expected  that  Lincoln  would  be  elected  senator  in  place  of 
Shields.  On  the  8th  of  February,  1855,  the  Legislature  met 
in  joint  session,  and  Palmer  nominated  Lyman  Trumbull. 
Judge  Logan  nominated  Abraham  Lincoln.  On  the  first  bal 
lot  Lincoln  received  forty-five,  Shields  forty-one,  and  Trum 
bull  five  votes,  and  there  were  some  scattering  votes.  Judd, 
Cook  and  Palmer  steadily  voted  for  Trumbull,  who  received 
other  votes,  varying  in  number,  until  the  tenth  ballot,  when 
Lincoln  urged  his  friends  to  vote  for  Trumbull,  who  received 
fifty-one  votes,  to  forty-seven  for  Joel  A.  Matteson,  and  one 
for  Archy  Williams.  l 

1.  House  Journal,  1855,  pp.  345-349. 


THE    STRUGGLE    FOR    KANSAS.  123. 

This  result  was  accomplished  by  the  utmost  personal 
efforts  of  Lincoln.  When  he  saw  that  the  friends  of  Trum- 
bull  were  firm,  and  would  not  vote  for  any  one  else,  and  that 
there  was  danger  that  Matteson  would  be  elected,  he  made 
an  appeal  to  his  personal  and  political  friends  so  earnest  that 
he  carried  them  all,  with  one  exception,  over  to  Trumbull, 
and  elected  him.  It  was  a  most  magnanimous  and  generous 
act,  and  exhibited  such  an  unselfish  devotion  to  principle  as 
to  call  forth  the  admiration  of  all.  It  strengthened  and  con 
solidated  the  opposition,  and  contributed  to  their  success  in 
the  following  year.  It  is  said  that  Judge  Stephen  T.  Logan 
actually  shed  tears  when,  at  Lincoln's  earnest  request,  he 
gave  up  his  friend  Lincoln  and  voted  for  his  life-long  politi 
cal  opponent.  Owen  Lovejoy  was  a  member  of  this  Legis 
lature,  and  voted  for  Lincoln  as  long  as  there  was  a 
probability  of  his  election. 

Trumbull  was  a  brilliant  and  able  lawyer,  then  residing 
in  Belleville,  in  St.  Clair  County.  He  had  been  Secretary  of 
State,  and  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  and  made 
a  most  able  and  distinguished  senator.  He  was,  during 
Lincoln's  administration,  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  the 
Judiciary,  and  a  very  prominent  member  of  the  Senate. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. — THE  BLOOMINGTON  CONVENTION. — PLAT 
FORM. —  WILLIAM  H.  BISSELL. —  REPUBLICAN  CONVENTION  AT 
PITTSBURGH.— AT  PHILADELPHIA. — NOMINATION  OF  FREMONT  AND 
DAYTON. — DOUGLAS  OPPOSES  THE  LECOMPTON  CONSTITUTION. — 
THE  DRED  SCOTT  DECISION. — LINCOLN  NOMINATED  FOR  THE 
SENATE. — His  SPEECH  AT  SPRINGFIELD,  JUNE,  1858. 

LET  us  now  turn  back  and  notice  some  important  events 
which  occurred  at  Washington.  When  Congress  met  in 
December,  1855,  the  slavery  conflict  was  raging  with  increas 
ing  violence.  There  was  a  long  struggle  for  the  election  of 
speaker.  After  sixty  days  spent  in  excited  and  fierce  debate 
and  in  balloting,  Nathaniel  P.  Banks,  of  Massachusetts,  was 
elected  over  Governor  Aiken,  of  South  Carolina.  In  the 
general  breaking  up  of  parties  caused  by  the  slavery  agita 
tion,  a  powerful  section  of  the  democratic  party,  having 
strong  convictions  against  slavery,  was  driven  from  its  ranks. 
The  old  whig  party  divided;  a  part,  made  up  of  the  more 
aged  and  conservative,  went  into  a  new  organization,  which 
called  itself  the  American  party,  the  leading  principle  of 
which  was  opposition  to  the  influence  of  foreign-born  citi 
zens  in  American  politics;  a  much  larger  portion  became 
*'  free  soilers,"  and  went  into  the  republican  party. 

It  was  obvious  that  the  time  had  come  for  the  organiza 
tion  of  a  new  party,  on  the  basis  of  opposition  to  the  exten 
sion  of  slavery.  Into  this  party  went  the  life,  vigor, 
•enthusiasm,  and  genuine  democratic  principles  of  the  old 

124 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY   125 

democracy — the  democracy  of  Jefferson.  Among  its  rep 
resentatives  were  Wilmot,  the  author  of  the  Wilmot  proviso, 
the  Blairs,  Fremont,  Bryant,  Bissell,  and  Trumbull.  With 
them  were  the  old  liberty  party,  the  abolitionists,  and  the 
anti-slavery  whigs.  Up  to  this  time  the  democratic  party, 
with  its  attractive  name  and  professions,  had  secured  nearly 
all  the  foreign-born  vote  of  the  country.  But  a  large  and 
intelligent  class  of  Germans,  Swedes,  and  Norwegians,  and 
some  Irish,  were  so  hostile  to  slavery  that  they  were  now 
ready  to  join  any  party  which  should  oppose  it,  and  especially 
its  leading  principle,  that  of  extension.  It  was  apparent  that, 
if  these  elements  could  be  combined  and  consolidated,  an 
organization  would  be  formed  having  every  element  of  suc 
cess.  Still  there  were  difficulties,  great  difficulties,  growing 
out  of  prejudice  of  race,  former  associations,  and  diversity 
of  opinion,  in  the  way  of  a  cordial  union.  The  new  party 
needed  a  great  leader,  an  organizer,  and  at  length  found 
such  a  leader  in  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  was  selected  by  the 
instincts  of  the  people,  and  was,  of  all  others,  the  representa 
tive  man  of  this  new  organization.  Perhaps  the  greatest 
difficulty  was  that  of  harmonizing  the  native  American  whigs 
with  the  foreign-born  voters.  Lincoln  had  the  sagacity  to 
make  a  simple  and  single  issue,  that  of  hostility  to  the  exten 
sion  of  slavery,  and  prohibition  in  all  the  territories,  and  to 
fight  the  battle  on  that  issue.  A  triumph  upon  this  issue 
would  be  the  triumph  over  slavery,  and  all  else  would  fol 
low. 

The  leaders  called  a  convention  to  meet  at  Pittsburgh  on 
the  anniversary  of  Washington's  birthday,  the  226.  of  Feb 
ruary,  1856.  The  venerable  Francis  P.  Blair  was  an  active 
member  of  the  convention.  It  prepared  the  way  for  a 
national  convention  to  nominate  candidates  for  President  and 
Vice-President. 

On  the  29th  of  May,  1856,  a  convention  of  the  people  of 
Illinois,  who  were  opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery,  met  at 
Bloomington  and  organized  the  republican  party.  It  was 
made  up  of  elements  which  had  never  before  acted  together, 


126  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  which  stood  for  very  conflicting  opinions.  The  com 
mittee  on  resolutions  found  themselves,  after  hours  of 
discussion,  unable  to  agree,  and  at  last  they  sent  for  Lin 
coln.  He  suggested  that  all  could  unite  on  the  principles  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  hostility  to  the  exten 
sion  of  slavery.  "  Let  us,"  said  he,  "  in  building  our  new 
party,  let  us  make  our  corner-stone  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence — let  us  build  on  this  rock,  and  the  gates  of  hell 
shall  not  prevail  against  us."  The  problem  was  mastered, 
and  the  convention  adopted  the  following: 

"  Resolved ',  That  we  hold,  in  accordance  with  the  opinions  and 
practices  of  all  the  great  statesmen  of  all  parties  for  the  first  sixty  years 
of  the  administration  of  the  government,  that,  under  the  Constitution, 
Congress  possesses  full  power  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  territories;  and 
that  while  we  will  maintain  all  constitutional  rights  of  the  South, we  also 
hold  that  justice,  humanity,  the  principles  of  freedom,  as  expressed 
in  our  Declaration  of  Independence  and  our  National  Constitution,  and 
the  purity  and  perpetuity  of  our  government  require  that  that  power 
should  be  exerted,  to  prevent  the  extension  of  slavery  into  territories  here 
tofore  free." 

Thus  was  organized  the  party  which,  against  the  potent 
influence  of  Douglas,  revolutionized  the  state  of  Illinois, 
and  elected  Lincoln  to  the  Presidency.  Lincoln's  speech  to 
this  convention  has  rarely  been  equalled.  "  Never,"  says 
one  of  the  delegates,  "was  an  audience  more  completely 
electrified  by  human  eloquence.  Again  and  again,  during 
the  delivery,  the  audience  sprang  to  their  feet,  and  by  long- 
continued  cheers,  expressed  how  deeply  the  speaker  had 
roused  them."  It  fused  the  mass  of  incongruous  elements 
into  harmony  and  union. 

Delegates  were  appointed  to  the  national  convention, 
which  was  to  meet  in  Philadelphia,  to  nominate  candidates 
for  President  and  Vice-President.  The  convention  then 
nominated  as  its  candidate  for  Governor,  the  gallant  soldier 
and  eloquent  statesman,  Colonel  William  H.  Bissell.  He 
had  distinguished  himself  for  his  courage  on  the  field  of 
Buena  Vista,  and  elsewhere,  in  the  war  against  Mexico.  Re 
turning  to  his  home  at  Belleville,  a  grateful  people  elected 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY       127 

him  to  Congress.  At  the  session  of  1850,  the  Illinois  sol 
diers  who  had  been  in  that  battle,  were  assailed  by  a  dis 
tinguished  member  of  Congress  from  Virginia.1  Bissell,  on 
the  2ist  of  July,  1850,  replied  in  a  speech  in  which  he  dis 
cussed  the  slavery  question,  and  defended  the  Illinois  sol 
diers  with  an  eloquence  and  spirit  which  created  a  sensation 
throughout  the  Union,  and  which  gave  him  a  great  personal 
popularity  in  the  Northwest.  For  this  manly  defense  he 
was  challenged  by  Jefferson  Davis,  and  promptly  accepted 
the  challenge.  They  were  to  fight  with  rifles.  Intelligence 
of  the  challenge  reached  President  Taylor,  whose  daughter 
Davis  had  married;  he  and  other  friends  interfered,  and 
the  difficulty  was  adjusted. 

In  June,  1856,  the  national  convention  of  the  republi 
can  party  met  at  Philadelphia,  and  nominated  John  C.  Fre 
mont  for  President,  and  William  L.  Dayton  for  Vice-Presi 
dent.  The  declaration  of  principles  was  substantially  the 
same  as  that  adopted  at  the  Bloomington  convention,  and 
on  which  Lincoln  and  his  friends  had  determined  to  fight 
the  battle  in  Illinois.  That  Mr.  Lincoln  began  to  be  appre 
ciated  as  the  leader  of  the  new  party  in  the  Northwest  was 
indicated  by  his  receiving  at  this  convention,  on  the  informal 
ballot  for  Vice-President,  one  hundred  and  ten  votes. 

The  democratic  national  convention  met  at  Cincinnati, 
on  the  second  of  June,  1856,  and  on  the  sixteenth  ballot  for 
President,  James  Buchanan  received  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
eight  votes,  and  Douglas  one  hundred  and  twenty-one. 
Buchanan  was  finally  nominated,  Douglas  being  considered 
unavailable,  because  of  his  direct  instrumentality  in  the  re 
peal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise;  and  the  incumbent,  Pierce, 
being  abandoned  because  he  had  been  made  unpopular  by 
the  outrages  upon  the  free-state  settlers  in  Kansas  during 
his  administration.  John  C.  Breckenridge,  of  Kentucky, 
was  nominated  for  Vice-President.  The  convention,  al 
though  it  dared  not,  or  would  not,  nominate  Douglas, 
indorsed  the  compromise  measures  of  1850,  and  the  laws 

1.  Mr.  Sedden. 


128  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

organizing  Kansas  and  Nebraska.  The  Southern  whigs,  and 
the  u  conservative  "  whigs  of  the  North,  sometimes  called, 
in  consideration  of  their  wise  and  venerable  looks,  the  "  Sil 
ver  Greys,"  nominated  Millard  Fillmore  for  President.  This 
convention  laid  upon  the  table  a  resolution  declaring  that 
no  man  should  be  nominated  who  was  not  in  favor  of  pro 
hibiting  slavery  north  of  36°  30',  by  Congressional  action, 
whereupon  a  large  number  of  delegates  left  the  convention,, 
and  supported  Fremont  and  Dayton. 

Then  followed  one  of  the  most  animated,  earnest,  and,  in 
the  free  states,  most  closely  contested  political  campaigns 
since  the  organization  of  the  government.  Lincoln  was 
constantly  speaking.  Up  to  the  state  elections  in  October 
it  seemed  quite  probable  that  the  republicans  would  succeed, 
but  the  democratic  party  managed  to  carry,  by  small  major 
ities,  the  close  and  doubtful  states  of  Pennsylvania  and  Indi 
ana,  and  the  contest  was  virtually  ended.  Buchanan  received 
one  hundred  and  seventy-two  electoral  votes,  Fremont  one 
hundred  and  fourteen,  and  Fillmore  the  vote  of  Maryland. 
The  slaveholders  were  greatly  elated  by  their  triumph  in 
the  election  of  Buchanan,  but  the  republicans,  so  far  from 
being  discouraged,  became  conscious  of  their  power,  nerved 
themselves  for  still  greater  efforts,  and  began  at  once  to  pre 
pare  for  the  campaign  of  1860. 

The  contest  between  freedom  and  slavery  in  Kansas  still 
went  on.  The  pro-slavery  men,  by  fraud  and  trickery,  and 
by  disfranchising  the  free-state  voters,  had  formed  a  consti 
tution  at  Lecompton,  which  established  slavery.  The  vot 
ers  in  favor  of  a  free  state,  after  seeing  the  elections  repeat 
edly  carried  by  non-residents  and  armed  intruders  from  Mis 
souri,  refused  to  take  part  in  the  mock  elections,  and,  call 
ing  a  convention  of  actual  settlers,  elected  delegates  to  a 
convention,  which  met  at  Topeka,  and  adopted  a  free  state 
constitution.  This  they  submitted  to  the  people,  and  it  was 
almost  unanimously  adopted.  They  then  proceeded  to 
elect  officers  under  it.  This  brought  the  contending  par 
ties  into  direct  collision,  and  civil  war  menaced  Kansas.  In. 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

1856,  Congress  appointed  an  investigating  committee,  whichr 
after  full  investigation,  reported  that  every  election  held  under 
the  auspices  of  the  United  States  officials  had  been  con 
trolled,  not  by  actual  settlers,  but  by  non-residents  from  Mis 
souri,  and  that  every  officer  in  the  territory  owed  his  election 
to  these  non-residents.  Meanwhile  the  persons  elected  by 
the  bonafide  settlers,  under  the  Topeka  constitution,  had  been 
arrested,  and  the  Legislature  dispersed,  by  the  regular  army 
of  the  United  States,  acting  under  orders  of  the  President. 
It  was  thus  that  Kansas  was  to  be  brought  into  the  Union  as 
a  slave  state. 

Douglas  had  the  sagacity  to  see  whither  this  extreme 
course  of  the  administration  was  tending,  and  the  courage 
and  good  faith  to  resist  it.  When  President  Buchanan,  on 
the  pth  of  December,  1857,  urged  Congress  to  admit  Kan 
sas  under  the  fraudulent  Lecompton  constitution  into  the 
Union,  Douglas  at  once  announced  his  opposition,  and  fol 
lowed  this  announcement  with  an  elaborate  and  able  speech 
against  the  proposed  measure.  "  Why,"  said  he,  "  forqe  this 
constitution  down  the  throats  of  the  people,  in  opposition  to 
their  wishes,  and  in  violation  of  our  pledges  ?  " 

"  The  people  want  a  fair  vote,  and  will  never  be 
satisfied  without  it."  *      "  If  it  is  to  be  forced, 

upon  the  people,  under  a  submission  that  is  a  mockery  and 
an  insult,  I  will  resist  to  the  last."  Douglas  never  exhibited 
more  commanding  ability,  than  when  he  led  the  opposition, 
in  the  United  States  Senate,  to  the  Lecompton  constitution. 
His  opposition  so  exasperated  the  slaveholders  that  they 
sought  to  degrade  him,  by  taking  from  him  the  position  he 
had  long  held  as  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Territories. 

While  the  Kansas  question  was  pending,  the  Illinois  senator 
called  at  the  White  House  on  official  business.  Mr.  Buchanan 
expostulated  with  him  for  opposing  the  administration  in  its 
Kansas  policy.  At  length  he  went  so  far  as  to  warn  Doug 
las  of  the  personal  consequences.  Recalling  the  fact  that 
Douglas  had  always  been  a  great  admirer  of  General  Jack 
son,  the  President  said :  "  You  are  an  ambitious  man,  Mr. 
9 


130  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Douglas,  and  there  is  a  brilliant  future  for  you,  if  you  retain 
the  confidence  of  the  democratic  party  ;  if  you  oppose  it,  let 
me  remind  you  of  the  fate  of  those  who  in  former  times 
rebelled  against  it.  Remember  the  fate  of  Senators  Rives 
and  Talmadge,  who  opposed  General  Jackson,  when  he 
removed  the  government  deposits  from  the  United  States 
Bank.  Beware  of  their  fate,  Mr.  Douglas." 

"  Mr.  President,"  replied  Douglas,  "  General  Jackson  is 
dead.  Good  morning,  sir  !  " 

We  have  seen  that  the  executive  and  legislative  depart 
ments  of  the  government  had  long  been  under  the  control 
of  the  slave  party.  The  judiciary,  over  which,  in  the  early 
days  of  the  republic,  had  presided  the  pure  and  spotless  abo 
litionist,  John  Jay,  and  the  great  constitutional  lawyer  and 
intellectual  giant,  John  Marshall,  had  become  an  object  of 
profound  respect,  even  of  reverence,  to  the  people.  It  had 
been  the  forum  before  which  the  highest  forensic  discussions 
had  been  held,  involving  the  most  important  questions  of 
private  rights  and  the  gravest  questions  of  constitutional 
power.  The  great  lawyers  and  statesmen  of  the  country, 
whose  names  are  most  prominent  in  forensic  literature:  Pinck- 
ney,  Henry,  Emmet,  Ogden,  Mason,  Dexter,  Webster,  Wirt, 
Clay,  Sargent,  and  others,  had  discussed  before  the  Supreme 
Court,  with  matchless  ability  and  learning,  questions  involving 
state  rights  and  national  sovereignty,  as  well  as  the  law  of 
nations,  and  of  maritime  and  constitutional  law.  The  peo 
ple  had  learned  to  regard  this  court  as  the  most  dignified, 
learned,  and  august  tribunal  on  earth.  The  period  had  now 
come  when  this  great  tribunal  was  to  be  prostituted,  and  our 
national  jurisprudence  disgraced,  by  its  decision  in  the  Dred 
Scott  case. 

Dred  Scott,  a  negro,  held  as  a  slave  in  Missouri,  had  been 
voluntarily  taken  by  his  master  into  the  free  state  of  Illi 
nois,  and  subsequently  to  Fort  Snelling,  in  territory  north  of 
the  line  of  36°  30',  where  slavery  was  prohibited  by  law. 
Up  to  the  time  of  the  decision  in  this  case,  it  had  been  con 
sidered  a  well  settled  principle  of  law,  that  when  a  master 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.      131 

voluntarily  brought  a  slave  from  a  slave  state  into  a  state  or 
territory  in  which  slavery  was  prohibited,  that  slave  became 
free.  The  case  was  fully  argued  before  the  Supreme  Court 
in  May,  1854.  It  was  for  decision  at  the  following  term  in 
1855-6,  but  the  decision  was  postponed  until  after  the  Presi 
dential  election  of  1856.  The  intense  excitement  which  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  and  the  outrages  in  Kan 
sas  had  created,  would  have  been  greatly  increased  if  the 
decision  had  been  announced  before  the  election,  and  it  is 
quite  probable  that  the  result  of  the  election  would  thereby 
have  been  changed.  The  court,  through  Chief  Justice 
Taney,  held  that  Dred  Scott,  being  descended  from  an 
African  slave,  was  not  and  could  not  be  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States,  and  therefore  could  not  maintain  a  suit  in  the 
Federal  Court.  This  disposed  of  the  case,  but  as  the  point 
had  been  made  in  the  argument  that  Scott  was  free  by  the 
prohibition  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  the  Chief  Justice 
and  a  majority  of  the  Court  eagerly  seized  the  opportunity, 
in  the  interest  of  slavery,  to  declare  the  prohibition  uncon 
stitutional  and  void,  and  the  Court  proceeded  to  say  that,  by 
virtue  of  the  Constitution,  slavery  existed  in  all  the  territories, 
and  that  Congress  had  no  power  to  prohibit  it.  Justices 
McLean  and  Curtis  gave  able  dissenting  opinions. 

Thus  the  triumph  of  slavery  was  complete.  The  revolu 
tion  on  the  subject  was  absolute.  The  government  was 
organized  on  the  basis  that  slavery  was  local,  tolerated  in 
the  states,  but  prohibited  in  the  territories,  and  on  this  prin 
ciple  "the  government  had  been  administered  down  to  the 
Dred  Scott  decision."  f  It  is  difficult  adequately  to  describe 

1.  George  Bancroft,  in  his  funeral  oration  on  Lincoln,  though  a  life-long  demo 
crat,  thus  characterizes  this  decision:  "  The  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States,  with 
out  any  necessity  or  occasion,  volunteered  to  come  to  the  rescue  of  the  theory  of 
slavery;  and  from  his  court  there  lay  no  appeal  but  to  the  law  of  humanity  and  his 
tory.  Against  the  Constitution,  against  the  memory  of  the  nation,  against  a  previous 
decision,  against  a  series  of  enactments,  he  decided  that  the  slave  is  property;  that 
slave  property  is  entitled  to  no  less  protection  than  any  other  property;  that  the  Con 
stitution  upholds  it  in  every  territory  against  any  act  of  a  local  Legislature,  and  even 
against  Congress  itself ;  or,  as  the  President  for  that  term  tersely  promulgated  the 
saying,  'Kansas  is  as  much  a  slave  state  as  South  Carolina  or  Georgia;  slavery,  by 
virtue  of  the  Constitution,  exists  in  every  territory.'  " 


132  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  astonishment  and  indignation  created  by  this  decision. 
It  everywhere  roused  the  people  to  a  sense  of  their  danger. 
There  was  needed  but  one  step  further,  and  a  much  shorter 
step  than  the  one  taken  in  this  case — namely,  for  the  Court 
to  say  that  the  Constitution  carried  slavery  as  well  into  the 
states  as  into  the  territories,  and  the  work  would  be  done, 
for  every  state  would  thus  become  a  slave  state. 

In  June,  1858,  the  Illinois  republican  state  convention 
met  at  Springfield,  and  nominated,  with  the  greatest  enthu 
siasm  and  with  perfect  unanimity,  Lincoln  as  their  candidate 
for  senator.  The  resolution  nominating  him  was  carried  by 
acclamation,  and  that  there  should  be  no  slip  this  time,  the 
convention  declared:  "Abraham  Lincoln  is  our  first  and 
only  choice  for  United  States  Senator." 

Lincoln's  speech  to  this  convention  was  the  platform  of 
the  memorable  debate  between  him  and  Douglas,  and  is  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  in  American  history.  It  was  earnest 
and  solemn,  and  gave  so  clear  an  exposition  of  the  antago 
nism  between  liberty  and  slavery,  that  his  words  secured 
the  immediate  and  universal  attention  of  the  nation.  "A 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand."  Governor 
Seward,  on  the  25th  of  October  thereafter,  at  Rochester, 
expressed  the  same  idea,  and  in  language,  some  of  which 
was  identical  with  that  used  in  June  by  Lincoln.  "  It  is," 
said  he,  "an  irrepressible  conflict  between  opposing  and 
enduring  forces,  and  it  means  that  the  United  States  will,, 
sooner  or  later,  become  either  a  slaveholding  nation,  or  an 
entirely  free-labor  nation."  This  speech,  whose  great 
importance  demands  its  insertion,  was  as  follows: 

MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  CONVENTION  :  If  we 
could  first  know  where  we  are,  and  whither  we  are  tending,  we  could 
better  judge  what  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it.  We  are  now  far  into  the  fifth 
year  since  a  policy  was  initiated  with  the  avowed  object  and  confident 
promise  of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation.  Under  the  operation  of 
that  policy,  that  agitation  has  not  only  not  ceased,  but  has  constantly 
augmented.  In  my  opinion,  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have 
been  reached  and  passed.  ' '  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand. " 
I  believe  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.      133 

free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved,  I  do  not  expect  the 
house  to  fall,  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become 
all  one  thing,  or  all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will 
arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall 
rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its 
advocates  will  push  it  forward,  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the 
states,  old  as  well  as  new — North  as  well  as  South. 

Have  we  no  tendency  to  the  latter  condition  ?  Let  any  one  who 
doubts,  carefully  contemplate  that  now  almost  complete  legal  combina 
tion — piece  of  machinery,  so  to  speak — compounded  of  the  Nebraska 
doctrine  and  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Let  him  consider  not  only  what 
work  the  machinery  is  adapted  to  do,  and  how  well  adapted,  but  also  let 
him  study  the  history  of  its  construction,  and  trace,  if  he  can,  or  rather 
fail,  if  he  can,  to  trace,  the  evidences  of  design,  and  concert  of  action, 
among  its  chief  architects  from  the  beginning. 

The  new  year  of  1854  found  slavery  excluded  from  more  than  half 
the  states  by  state  constitutions,  and  from  most  of  the  national  territory 
by  Congressional  prohibition.  Four  days  later  commenced  the  struggle 
which  ended  in  repealing  that  Congressional  prohibition.  This  opened 
all  the  national  territory  to  slavery,  and  was  the  first  point  gained. 

But  so  far  Congress  only  had  acted,  and  an  indorsement  by  the  peo 
ple,  real  or  apparent,  was  indispensable  to  save  the  point  already  gained 
and  give  chance  for  more. 

This  necessity  had  not  been  overlooked,  but  had  been  provided  for, 
as  well  as  might  be,  in  the  notable  argument  of  "  squatter  sovereignty," 
otherwise  called  "  sacred  right  of  self-government,"  which  latter  phrase, 
though  expressive  of  the  only  rightful  basis  of  any  government,  was  so 
perverted  in  this  attempted  use  of  it  as  to  amount  to  just  this  :  That  if 
any  one  man  choose  to  enslave  another  no  third  man  shall  be  allowed  to 
object.  That  article  was  incorporated  into  the  Nebraska  bill  itself,  in 
the  language  which  follows:  "  It  being  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of 
this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  territory  or  state,  nor  to  exclude 
it  therefrom;  but  to  leave  the  people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and 
regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States."  Then  opened  the  roar  of  loose 
declamation  in  favor  of  "squatter  sovereignty, "  and  "sacred  right  of 
self-government."  "  But,"  said  the  opposition  members,  "  let  us  amend 
the  bill  so  as  to  expressly  declare  that  the  people  of  the  territory  may 
exclude  slavery."  "  Not  we,"  said  the  friends  of  the  measure,  and  down 
they  voted  the  amendment. 

While  the  Nebraska  bill  was  passing  through  Congress,  a  laiv  case, 
involving  the  question  of  a  negro's  freedom,  by  reason  of  his  owner 
having  voluntarily  taken  him  first  into  a  free  state,  and  then  into  a  free 


134  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

territory  covered  by  the  Congressional  prohibition,  and  held  him  as  a 
slave  for  a  long  time  in  each,  was  passing  through  the  United  States  Circuit 
Court  for  the  District  of  Missouri  ;  and  both  Nebraska  bill,  and  law 
suit,  were  brought  to  a  decision  in  the  same  month  of  May,  1854.  The 
negro's  name  was  "Dred  Scott,"  which  name  now  designates  the  decis 
ion  finally  rendered  in  the  case.  Before  the  then  next  presidential  elec 
tion,  the  law  came  to,  and  was  argued  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  ;  but  the  decision  of  it  was  deferred  until  after  the  election.  Still, 
before  the  election,  Senator  Trumbull,  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  requested 
the  leading  advocate  of  the  Nebraska  bill  to  state  his  opinion  whether  the 
people  of  a  territory  can  constitutionally  exclude  slavery  from  their 
limits,  and  the  latter  answers:  "That  is  a  question  for  the  Supreme 
Court." 

The  election  came.  Mr.  Buchanan  was  elected,  and  the  endorse 
ment,  such  as  it  was,  secured.  That  was  the  second  point  gained.  The 
endorsement,  however,  fell  short  of  a  clear  popular  majority,  by  nearly 
four  hundred  thousand  votes,  and  so,  perhaps,  was  not  overwhelmingly 
reliable  and  satisfactory.  The  outgoing  President,  in  his  last  annual 
message,  as  impressively  as  possible  echoed  back  upon  the  people  the 
weight  and  authority  of  the  endorsement.  The  Supreme  Court  met 
again  ;  did  not  announce  their  decision,  but  ordered  a  re-argument.  The 
presidential  inauguration  came,  and  still  no  decision  of  the  Court  ;  but 
the  incoming  President,  in  his  inaugural  address,  fervently  exhorted  the 
people  to  abide  by  the  forthcoming  decision,  whatever  it  might  be.  Then 
in  a  few  days,  came  the  decision. 

The  reputed  author  of  the  Nebraska  bill  finds  an  early  occasion  to- 
make  a  speech  at  this  Capitol,  indorsing  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and 
vehemently  denouncing  all  opposition  to  it.  The  new  President,  too, 
seizes  the  early  occasion  of  the  Silliman  letter  to  indorse  and  strongly 
construe  that  decision,  and  to  express  his  astonishment  that  any  different 
view  had  ever  been  entertained. 

At  length  a  squabble  springs  up  between  the  President  and  the  author 
of  the  Nebraska  bill,  on  the  mere  question  of  fact,  whether  the  Lecomp- 
ton  constitution  was  or  was  not,  in  any  just  sense,  made  by  the  people 
of  Kansas  ;  and  in  that  quarrel  the  latter  declares  that  all  he  wants  is  a 
fair  vote  for  the  people,  and  that  he  cares  not  whether  slavery  be  voted 
down  or  up.  I  do  not  understand  his  declaration,  that  he  cares  not 
whether  slavery  be  voted  down  or  voted  up,  to  be  intended  by  him  other 
than  as  an  apt  definition  of  the  policy  he  would  impress  upon  the  public 
mind — the  principle  for  which  he  declares  he  has  suffered  so  much,  and 
is  ready  to  suffer  to  the  end.  And  well  may  he  cling  to  that  principle. 
If  he  has  any  parental  feeling,  well  may  he  cling  to  it.  That  principle 
is  the  only  shred  left  of  his  original  Nebraska  doctrine.  Under  the 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.      135 

Dred  Scott  decision,  "  squatter  sovereignty  "  squatted  out  of  existence, 
tumbled  down  like  temporary  scaffolding — like  the  mould  at  the  foundry, 
it  served  through  one  blast  and  fell  back  into  loose  sand — helped  to  carry 
an  election,  and  then  was  kicked  to  the  winds.  His  late  joint  struggle 
with  the  republicans,  against  the  Lecompton  constitution,  involves  noth 
ing  of  the  original  Nebraska  doctrine.  That  struggle  was  made  on  a 
point — the  right  of  the  people  to  make  their  own  constitution — upon 
which  he  and  the  republicans  have  never  differed. 

The  several  points  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  in  connection  with 
Senator  Douglas's  "  care  not"  policy,  constitute  the  piece  of  machinery, 
in  its  present  state  of  advancement.  This  was  the  third  point  gained. 
The  working  points  of  that  machinery  are  : 

First,  That  no  negro  slave,  imported  as  such  from  Africa,  and  no 
descendant  of  such  slave,  can  ever  be  a  citizen  of  any  state,  in  the  sense 
of  that  term  as  •  used  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  This 
point  is  made  in  order  to  deprive  the  negro,  in  every  possible  event,  of 
the  benefit  of  that  provision  of  the  United  States  Constitution,  which 
declares  that  "  citizens  of  each  state  shall  be  entitled  to  all  privileges  and 
immunities  of  citizens  in  the  several  states." 

Secondly,  That  "  subject  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States," 
neither  Congress  nor  a  territorial  legislature  can  exclude  slavery  from  any 
United  States  territory.  This  point  is  made  in  order  that  individual  men 
may  fill  up  the  territories  with  slaves,  without  danger  of  losing  them  as 
property,  and  thus  to  enhance  the  chances  of  permanency  to  the  institu 
tion  through  all  the  future. 

Thirdly,  That  whether  the  holding  a  negro  in  actual  slavery,  in  a 
free  state,  makes  him  free,  as  against  the  holder,  the  United  States 
Courts  will  not  decide,  but  will  leave  to  be  decided  by  the  courts  of  any 
slave  state  the  negro  may  be  forced  into  by  the  master.  This  point 
is  made,  not  to  be  pressed  immediately  ;  but,  if  acquiesced  in  for  awhile, 
and  apparently  indorsed  by  the  people  at  an  election,  then  to  sustain  the 
logical  conclusion  that  what  Dred  Scott's  master  might  lawfully  do  with 
Dred  Scott,  in  the  free  state  of  Illinois,  every  other  master  may  lawfully 
do  with  any  other  one,  or  one  thousand  slaves,  in  Illinois,  or  in  any  other 
free  state. 

Auxiliary  to  all  this,  and  working  hand  in  hand  with  it,  the 
Nebraska  doctrine,  or  what  is  left  of  it,  is  to  educate  and  mould  public 
opinion  not  to  care  whether  slavery  is  voted  down  or  voted  up.  This 
shows  exactly  where  we  now  are,  and  partially,  also,  whither  we  are 
tending. 

It  will  throw  additional  light  on  the  latter,  to  go  back,  and  run 
the  mind  over  the  string  of  historical  facts  already  stated.  Several 
things  will  now  appear  less  dark  and  mysterious  than  they  did  when  they 


136  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

were  transpiring.  The  people  were  to  be  left  "  perfectly  free,"  "  subject 
only  to  the  Constitution."  What  the  Constitution  had  to  do  with  it, 
outsiders  could  not  then  see.  Plainly  enough  now,  it  was  an  exactly 
fitted  niche,  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision  to  afterwards  come  in,  and 
declare  the  perfect  freedom  of  the  people  to  be  just  no  freedom  at  all. 
Why  was  the  amendment  expressly  declaring  the  right  of  the  people, 
voted  down  ?  Plainly  enough  now.  The  adoption  of  it  would  have 
spoiled  the  niche  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Why  was  the  court  decis 
ion  held  up  ?  Why  even  a  senator's  individual  opinion  withheld,  till 
after  the  presidential  election  ?  Plainly  enough  now  :  the  speaking  out 
then  would  have  damaged  the  perfectly  free  argument  upon  which  the 
election  was  to  be  carried.  Why  the  outgoing  President's  felicitation  on 
the  indorsement  ?  Why  the  delay  of  a  re-argument  ?  Why  the  incom 
ing  President's  advance  exhortation  in  favor  of  the  decision  ?  These 
things  look  like  the  cautious  patting  and  petting  of  a  spirited  horse  pre 
paratory  to  mounting  him,  when  it  is  dreaded  that  he  may  give  the  rider 
a  fall.  And  why  the  hasty  after-indorsement  of  the  decision  by  the 
President  and  others  ? 

We  cannot  absolutely  know  that  all  these  adaptations  are  the  result 
of  preconcert.  But  when  we  see  a  lot  of  framed  timbers,  different  por 
tions  of  which  we  know  have  been  gotten  out  at  different  times  and 
places,  and  by  different  workmen — Stephen,  Franklin,  Roger,  and 
James,  for  instance,  l  and  when  we  see  these  timbers  joined 
together,  and  see  they  exactly  make  the  frame  of  a  house,  or  a  mill,  all 
the  tenons  and  mortises  exactly  fitting,  and  all  the  lengths  and  propor 
tions  of  the  different  pieces  exactly  adapted  to  their  respective  places, 
and  not  a  piece  too  many  or  too  few — not  omitting  even  scaffolding — or, 
if  a  single  piece  be  lacking,  we  see  the  place  in  the  frame  exactly  fitted 
and  prepared  yet  to  bring  such  piece  in,  in  such  a  case,  we  find  it  impos 
sible  not  to  believe  that  Stephen,  and  Franklin,  and  Roger,  and  James, 
all  understood  one  another  from  the  beginning,  and  all  worked  upon  a 
common  plan  or  draft,  drawn  up  before  the  first  blow  was  struck. 

It  should  not  be  overlooked  that,  by  the  Nebraska  bill,  the  people  of 
a  state  as  well  as  territory,  were  to  be  left  "  perfectly  free,"  "  subject 
only  to  the  Constitution."  Why  mention  a  state?  They  were  legislat 
ing  for  territories,  and  not  for  or  about  states.  Certainly  the  people  of 
a  state  are  and  ought  to  be  subject  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States;  but  why  is  mention  of  this  lugged  into  this  merely  territorial 
law?  Why  are  the  people  of  a  territory  and  the  people  of  a  state  therein 
lumped  together,  and  their  relation  to  the  Constitution  therein  treated 
as  being  precisely  the  same?  While  the  opinion  of  the  court,  by  Chief 
Justice  Taney,  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  and  the  separate  opinions  of  all  the 

1.  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  Franklin  Pierce,  Koger  B.  Taney,  and  James  Buchanan. 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY.      137 

"concurring  judges,  expressly  declare  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  neither  permits  Congress  nor  a  territorial  Legislature  to  exclude 
slavery  from  any  United  States  territory,  they  all  omit  to  declare  whether 
•or  not  the  same  Constitution  permits  a  state,  or  the  people  of  a  state,  to 
exclude  it.  Possibly,  this  is  a  mere  omission;  but  who  can  be  quite  sure, 
if  Mr.  McLean  or  Curtis  had  sought  to  get  into  the  opinion  a  declara 
tion  of  unlimited  power  in  the  people  of  a  state  to  exclude  slavery  from 
their  limits,  just  as  Chase  and  Mace  sought  to  get  such  declaration,  in 
behalf  of  the  people  of  a  territory,  into  the  Nebraska  bill; — I  ask  who 
can  be  quite  sure  that  it  would  not  have  been  voted  down  in  the  one 
case  as  it  had  been  in  the  other  ?  The  nearest  approach  to  the  point  of 
declaring  the  power  of  a  state  over  slavery,  is  made  by  Judge  Nelson. 
He  approaches  it  more  than  once,  using  the  precise  idea,  and  almost  the 
language,  too,  of  the  Nebraska  act.  On  one  occasion,  his  exact  lan 
guage  is,  "  except  in  cases  where  the  power  is  restrained  by  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States,  the  law  of  the  state  is  supreme  over  the  sub 
ject  of  slavery  within  its  jurisdiction."  In  what  cases  the  power  of  the 
states  is  so  restrained  by  the  United  States  Constitution,  is  left  an  open 
question,  precisely  as  the  same  question,  as  to  the  restraint  on  the 
power  of  the  territories,  was  left  open  in  the  Nebraska  act.  Put 
this  and  that  together,  and  we  have  another  nice  little  niche,  which 
we  may,  ere  long,  see  filled  with  another  Supreme  Court  decision, 
declaring  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  does  not  permit 
a  state  to  exclude  slavery  from  its  limits.  And  this  may  especially 
be  expected  if  the  doctrine  of  "  care  not  whether  slavery  be  voted 
down  or  voted  up,"  shall  gain  upon  the  public  mind  sufficiently  to  give 
promise  that  such  a  decision  can  be  maintained  when  made. 

Such  a  decision  is  all  that  slavery  now  lacks  of  being  alike  lawful  in 
all  the  states.  Welcome,  or  unwelcome,  such  decision  is  probably  com 
ing,  and  will  soon  be  upon  us,  unless  the  power  of  the  present  political 
dynasty  shall  be  met  and  overthrown.  We  shall  lie  down,  pleasantly 
dreaming  that  the  people  of  Missouri  are  on  the  verge  of  making  their 
state  free,  and  we  shall  awake  to  the  reality  instead,  that  the  Supreme 
Court  has  made  Illinois  a  slave  state.  To  meet  and  overthrow  the  power 
of  that  dynasty,  is  the  work  now  before  all  those  who  would  prevent  that 
consummation.  That  is  what  we  have  to  do.  How  can  we  best  do  it? 

There  are  those  who  denounce  us  openly  to  their  own  friends,  and 
yet  whisper  to  us  softly,  that  Senator  Douglas  is  the  aptest  instrument 
there  is  with  which  to  effect  that  object.  They  wish  us  to  infer  all, 
from  the  fact  that  he  now  has  a  little  quarrel  .with  the  present  head  of 
the  dynasty;  and  that  he  has  regularly  voted  with  us  on  a  single  point, 
upon  which  he  and  we  have  never  differed.  They  remind  us  that  he  is 
a  great  man,  and  that  the  largest  of  us  are  very  small  ones.  Let  this  be 


138  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

granted.  But  "  a  living  dog  is  better  than  a  dead  lion."  Judge  Doug 
las,  if  not  a  dead  lion  for  this  work,  is  at  least  a  caged  and  toothless  one. 
How  can  he  oppose  the  advances  of  slavery  ?  He  don't  care  anything 
about  it.  His  avowed  mission  is  impressing  the  "  public  heart"  to 
care  nothing  about  it.  A  leading  Douglas  democratic  newspaper  thinks 
Douglas's  superior  talent  will  be  needed  to  resist  the  revival  of  the  Afri 
can  slave  trade.  Does  Douglas  believe  an  effort  to  revive  that  trade  is 
approaching?  He  has  not  said  so.  Does  he  really  think  so  ?  But  if  it 
is,  how  can  he  resist  it  ?  For  years  he  has  labored  to  prove  it  a  sacred 
right  of  white  men  to  take  negro  slaves  into  the  new  territories.  Can  he 
possibly  show  that  it  is  less  a  sacred  right  to  buy  them  where  they  can 
be  bought  cheapest  ?  And  unquestionably  they  can  be  bought  cheaper 
in  Africa  than  in  Virginia.  He  has  done  all  in  his  power  to  reduce  the 
whole  question  of  slavery  to  one  of  a  mere  right  of  property;  and  as 
such,  how  can  he  oppose  the  foreign  slave  trade — how  can  he  refuse  that 
trade  in  that  "property"  shall  be  "  perfectly  free,"  unless  he  does  it  as 
a  protection  to  the  home  production  ?  And  as  the  home  producers  will 
probably  not  ask  the  protection,  he  will  be  wholly  without  a  ground  of 
opposition. 

Senator  Douglas  holds,  we  know,  that  a  man  may  rightfully  be 
wiser  to-day  than  he  was  yesterday — that  he  may  rightfully  change 
when  he  finds  himself  wrong.  But  can  we,  for  that  reason,  run  ahead, 
and  infer  that  he  will  make  any  particular  change,  of  which  he,  himself, 
has  given  no  intimation?  Can  we  safely  base  our  action  upon  any  such 
vague  inference  ?  Now,  as  ever,  I  wish  not  to  misrepresent  Judge 
Douglas's  position,  question  his  motives,  or  do  aught  that  can  be  person 
ally  offensive  to  him.  Whenever,  if  ever,  he  and  we  can  come  together 
on  principle,  so  that  our  cause  may  have  assistance  from  his  great  ability, 
I  hope  to  have  interposed  no  adventitious  obstacle.  But  clearly,  he  is 
not  with  us — he  does  not  pretend  to  be — he  does  not  promise  ever  to  be. 

Our  cause,  then,  must  be  intrusted  to,  and  conducted  by,  its  own 
undoubted  friends — those  whose  hands  are  free,  whose  hearts  are  in  the 
work — who  do  care  for  the  result.  Two  years  ago  the  republicans  of  the 
nation  mustered  over  thirteen  hundred  thousand  strong.  We  did  this 
under  the  single  impulse  of  resistance  to  a  common  danger,  with  every 
external  circumstance  against  us.  Of  strange,  discordant,  and  even 
hostile  elements,  we  gathered  from  the  four  winds,  and  formed  and 
fought  the  battle  through,  under  the  constant  hot  fire  of  a  disciplined, 
proud,  and  pampered  enemy.  Did  we  brave  all  then,  to  falter  now  ? — 
now,  when  that  same  enemy  is  wavering,  dissevered,  and  belligerent? 
The  result  is  not  doubtful.  We  shall  not  fail — if  we  stand  firm,  we 
shall  not  fail.  Wise  counsels  may  accelerate,  or  mistakes  delay  it,  but, 
sooner  or  later,  the  victory  is  sure  to  come. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  LINCOLN   AND    DOUGLAS   DEBATE. 

DOUGLAS'S  RETURN  TO  ILLINOIS. — SPEECHES  OF  LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS 
AT  CHICAGO,  BLOOMINGTON,  AND  SPRINGFIELD. — LINCOLN  AND 
DOUGLAS  COMPARED. — THE  JOINT  DISCUSSIONS  AT  CHARLESTON. 
— AT  FREEPORT. — AT  ALTON. 

THE  discussions  between  Lincoln  and  Douglas,  in  1858, 
were  unquestionably,  with  reference  to  the  importance  of  the 
topics  discussed,  the  ability  of  the  speakers,  and  their  influ 
ence  upon  events,  the  most  important  in  American  history. 

There  had  been  great  debates  in  the  old  Continental  Con 
gress,  on  the  subject  of  independence,  and  upon  other  vital 
questions;  great  debates  in  Congress  in  1820-21,  on  the 
Missouri  question.  The  discussion  between  Webster  and 
Hayne,  and  Webster  and  Calhoun  on  nullification  and  the 
Constitution,  were  memorable;  but  the  debates  in  1858, 
between  Lincoln  and  Douglas,  in  historic  interest  surpassed 
them  all. 

It  is  no  injustice  to  others  to  say  that  these  discussions, 
and  especially  the  speeches  of  Lincoln,  circulated  and  read 
throughout  the  Union,  did  more  than  an^other  agency  to 
create  the  public  opinion  which  prepared  the  way 
for  the  overthrow  of  slavery.  The  speeches  of  John 
Quincy  Adams  and  of  Charles  Sumner  were  more  learned 
and  scholarly ;  those  of  Lovejoy  and  Wendell  Phillips 
were  more  vehement  and  impassioned;  Senators  Seward, 
Hale,  Trumbull,  and  Chase  spoke  from  a  more  conspicuous 
forum;  but  Lincoln's  were  more  philosophical,  while  as  able 

139 


I4O  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

-and  earnest  as  any,  and  his  manner  had  a  simplicity  and 
directness,  a  clearness  of  statement  and  felicity  of  illustra 
tion,  and  his  language  a  plainness  and  Anglo-Saxon  strength, 
better  adapted  than  any  other  to  reach  and  influence  the 
common  people,  the  mass  of  the  voters. 

At  the  time  of  these  discussions,  both  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  were  in  the  full  maturity  of  their  powers.  Douglas 
was  forty-five,  and  Lincoln  forty-nine  years  of  age.  Physi 
cally  and  mentally,  they  were  as  unlike  as  possible.  Doug 
las  was  short,  not  much  more  than  five  feet  high,  with  a  large 
head,  massive  brain,  broad  shoulders,  a  wide,  deep  chest,  and 
features  strongly  marked.  He  impressed  every  one  at  first 
sight,  as  a  strong,  sturdy,  resolute,  fearless  man.  Lincoln's 
herculean  stature  has  been  already  described.  A  stranger 
who  listened  to  him  for  five  minutes  would  say:  "  This  is  a 
kind,  genial,  sincere,  genuine  man;  a  man  you  can  trust, 
plain,  straightforward,  honest,  and  true."  If  this  stranger 
were  to  hear  him  make  a  speech,  he  would  be  impressed 
with  his  clear  good  sense,  by  his  wit  and  humor,  by  his  gen 
eral  intelligence,  and  by  the  simple,  homely,  but  pure  and 
accurate  language  he  used. 

Douglas  was,  in  his  manners,  cordial,  frank,  and  hearty. 
The  poorest  and  humblest  found  him  friendly.  In  his 
younger  days  he  had  a  certain  familiarity  of  manner  quite 
unusual.  When  he  was  at  the  bar,  and  even  after  he  went 
on  the  bench,  it  was  not  unusual  for  him  to  come  down  from 
the  bench,  or  leave  his  chair  at  the  bar,  and  take  his  seat  on 
the  knee  of  a  friend,  and,  with  an  arm  thrown  familiarly 
around  the  neck  of  his  companion,  have  a  social  chat,  or  a 
legal  or  political  consultation.1 

Such  familiarity  had  disappeared  before  1858.  In  his 
long  residence  at  Washington,  Douglas  had  acquired  the 

1.  Such  familiarities  were  not  general  at  the  West,  as  Is  shown  by  an  incident 
which  illustrates  the  personal  dignity  of  the  great  senator  from  Missouri,  Mr.  Ben- 
ton.  A  distinguished  member  of  Congress,  who  was  a  great  admirer  of  Benton,  but 
a  man  of  brusque  manners,  one  day  approached  and  slapped  Benton  familiarly  and 
rudely  on  the  shoulder.  The  senator  haughtily  drew  himself  up  and  said:  "  That,  sir,  is 
a  familiarity  I  never  permit  my  friends,  much  less  a  comparative  stranger.  Sir,  it 
must  not  be  repeated." 


THE  LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS  DEBATE.  141 

bearing  and  manners  of  a  perfect  gentleman  and  man  of  the 
world.  But  he  was  always  a  fascinating  and  attractive  man, 
and  always  and  everywhere  personally  popular.  He  had 
been,  for  years,  carefully  ancj  thoroughly  trained  ;  on  the 
stump,  in  Congress,  and  in  the  Senate,  to  meet  in  debate  the 
ablest  speakers  in  the  state  and  nation.  For  years  he  had 
been  accustomed  to  meet  on  the  floor  of  the  Capitol,  the 
leaders  of  the  old  whig  and  free  soil  parties.  Among  them 
were  Webster  and  Seward,  Fessenden  and  Crittenden,  Chase,, 
Trumbull,  Hale,  and  others  of  nearly  equal  eminence,  and 
his  enthusiastic  friends  insisted  that  never,  either  in  single  con 
flict,  or  when  receiving  the  assault  of  the  senatorial  leaders 
of  a  whole  party,  had  he  been  discomfited.  His  style  was 
bold,  vigorous,  and  aggressive,  and  at  times  even  defiant. 
He  was  ready,  fluent,  fertile  in  resources,  familiar  with 
national  and  party  history,  severe  in  denunciation,  and  he 
handled  with  skill  nearly  all  the  weapons  of  debate.  His 
iron  will  and  restless  energy,  together  with  great  personal, 
magnetism,  made  him  the  idol  of  his  friends  and  party. 
His  long,  brilliant,  and  almost  universally  successful  career, 
gave  him  perfect  confidence  in  himself,  and  at  times  he  was. 
arrogant  and  overbearing. 

Lincoln  was  also  a  thoroughly  trained  speaker.  He  had 
met  successfully,  year  after  year,  at  the  bar,  and  on  the 
stump,  the  ablest  men  of  Illinois  and  the  Northwest,  includ 
ing  Lamborn,  Stephen  T.  Logan,  John  Calhoun,  and  many 
others.  He  had  contended  in  generous  emulation  with  Hardin,  • 
Baker,  Logan,  and  Browning,  and  had  very  often  met 
Douglas,  a  conflict  with  whom  he  always  courted  rather 
than  shunned.  He  had  at  Peoria,  and  elsewhere,  extorted 
from  Douglas  the  statement,  that  in  all  his  discussions  at 
Washington,  he  had  never  met  an  opponent  who  had  given 
him  so  much  trouble  as  Lincoln.  His  speeches,  as  we  read 
them  to-day,  show  a  more  familiar  knowledge  of  the  slavery 
question,  than  those  of  any  other  statesman  of  our  country. 
This  is  especially  true  of  the  Peoria  speech,  and  the  Cooper 
Institute  speech.  Lincoln  was  powerful  in  argument,  always 


142  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

seizing  the  strong  points,  and  demonstrating  his  propositions 
with  a  clearness  and  logic  approaching  the  certainty  of 
mathematics.  He  had,  in  wit  and  humor,  a  great  advantage 
over  Douglas.  Douglas's  friends  loved  to  call  him  "  the  lit 
tle  giant;"  Lincoln  was  physically  and  intellectually  the  big 
giant. 

Such  were  the  champions  who,  in  1858,  were  to  discuss 
before  the  voters  of  Illinois,  and  with  the  whole  nation  as 
spectators  and  readers  of  the  discussion,  the  vital  questions 
relating  to  slavery.  It  was  not  a  single  debate,  but,  begin 
ning  at  Chicago,  in  July,  extended  late  into  October,  nearly 
to  the  time  of  the  November  elections.  Reporters,  repre 
senting  the  great  daily  newspapers  of  New  York,  Chicago, 
St.  Louis,  and  Cincinnati,  were  present,  and  the  speeches 
were  reported,  printed,  and  scattered  broadcast  over  the 
nation  :  and  were  so  widely  read,  that  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  the  whole  American  people  paused  to  watch  the  pro 
gress  of  the  debates,  and  hung  with  intense  interest  on  the 
words  and  movements  of  the  champions.  1 

It  was  indeed  a  grand  spectacle.  Each  speaker,  while 
addressing  from  five  to  ten  thousand  people,  or  as  many  as 
could  hear  any  human  voice  in  the  open  air,  was  also  con 
scious  that  he  spoke  not  to  his  hearers  only,  but  to  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  readers;  conscious  that  he  was  speaking,  not 
for  a  day,  or  for  a  political  campaign,  but  for  all  time — and 
thus  stimulated,  each  rose  to  the  gravity  and  dignity  of  the 
occasion.  There  was  not  then,  nor  is  there  now,  any  hall  in 
Illinois  large  enough  to  receive  the  vast  crowds  which 
gathered.  The  groves  and  prairies  alone  could  furnish 
adequate  space,  and  so  the  people  gathered  under  the  locusts 

1.  As  an  Illustration  of  this,  I  insert  a  paragraph  from  a  letter  of  Henry  W. 
Longfellow,  to  whom  a  sketch  of  this  debate  was  sent  a  short  time  before  his  death. 
The  letter  is  dated  at  Cambridge,  Feb.  22d,  1881,  and  he  says  : 

'*  I  have  read  it  (the  sketch)  with  interest  and  pleasure,  particularly  that  part  of 
it  which  relates  to  Mr.  Lincoln. 

I  well  remember  the  impression  made  upon  me  by  his  speeches  in  this  famous 
political  canvass,  in  1858,  as  reported  in  the  papers  at  the  time,  and  am  glad  to  find  it 
renewed  and  confirmed  by  your  vivid  sketches. 

I  am,  my  dear  Sir,  Yours  Very  Truly, 

HHIOIY  W.  LONGFBLLOW." 


THE  LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS  DEBATE.  143 

on  the  public  square  at  Ottawa,  on  the  oak  and  elm  shaded 
banks  of  Rock  River  at  Freeport,  at  Quincy  near  the  Missis 
sippi,  and  elsewhere,  to  hear  these  their  leaders. 

The  first  speech  was  made  by  Douglas,  Lincoln  being 
present,  at  Chicago,  on  the  evening  of  the  Qth  of  July,  1858, 
from  the  balcony  of  the  old  Tremont  House ;  Dearborn  and 
Lake  Streets  being  completely  packed  with  citizens,  and  the 
hotel  parlors  and  rotunda  filled  with  ladies  and  privileged 
guests.  On  the  following  evening  Lincoln  replied  from  the 
same  place,  to  a  crowd  equally  great.  On  the  i6th  of  July, 
Douglas  spoke  again  at  Bloomington,  Lincoln  being  present. 
On  the  1 7th  of  July,  Douglas  spoke  at  the  Capitol  in  Spring 
field,  and  on  the  evening  of  the  same  day  Lincoln  replied. 

On  the  24th  of  July,  Lincoln  addressed  a  note  to  Doug 
las,  proposing  arrangements  for  a  series  of  joint  discussions 
during  the  canvass.1  After  some  correspondence  it  was 
agreed  that  there  should  be  seven  joint  discussions,  that  the 
opening  speech  should  occupy  one  hour,  the  reply  one  hour 
and  a  half,  and  the  close  a  half  hour,  so  that  each  discussion 
should  occupy  three  hours.  They  were  to  speak  at  Ottawa, 
August  2ist  ;  at  Freeport,  August  27th  ;  at  Jonesborough, 
September  i5th;  at  Charleston,  September  i8th;  at  Gales- 
burg,  October  yth  ;  at  Quincy,  October  i3th  ;  and  at  Alton, 
October  1 5th.  Douglas  was  to  have  the  opening  and  the 
close  of  the  debate  at  four  of  these  seven  meetings. 

The  disinterested  spectator  at  one  of  these  discussions 
would,  when  they  began,  probably  find  his  sympathy  with 
"the  little  giant,"  on  the  principle  that  one  is  apt  to  sympa 
thize  with  the  smaller  man  in  a  fight.  If  so,  and  he  were 
to  remain  to  the  close,  he  would  be  likely  to  change  sides 
before  the  end,  seeing  that  Lincoln  was  so  fair,  so  candid,  so 
frank,  so  courteous,  and  answered  every  question  so  well, 

1.  CHICAGO,  ILL.,  July  24,  1858. 

HON.  S.  A.  DOUGLAS. — My  Dear  Sir :  Will  It  be  agreeable  to  you  to  make  an 
arrangement  for  you  and  myself  to  divide  time  and  address  the  same  audiences  the 
present  canvass.  Mr.  Judd,  who  will  hand  you  this,  is  authorized  to  receive  your 
answer,  and,  If  agreeable  to  you,  to  enter  into  the  terms  of  such  arrangement. 

Your  obedient  servant,  A.  LINOOLK. 

— Lincoln  and  Douglas  Debates,  p .  64. 


144  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

while  Douglas  was  at  times  evasive,  at  others  arrogant,  and 
not  always  even  courteous. 

There  is  in  one  of  Lincoln's  speeches,  made  in  1856,*  an 
allusion  to  Douglas,  so  beautiful,  generous,  and  eloquent, 
that  I  quote  it  as  an  indication  of  the  temper  in  which  he 
carried  on  these  discussions  :  "  Twenty  years  ago,"  said 
he,  "  Douglas  and  I  first  became  acquainted.  We  were  both 
young  then — he  a  trifle  younger  than  I.  Even  then  we- 
were  both  ambitious — I,  perhaps,  quite  as  much  as  he.  With 
me  the  race  of  ambition  has  been  a  failure — a  flat  failure. 
With  him  it  has  been  one  of  splendid  success.  His  name 
fills  the  nation,  and  is  not  unknown  even  in  foreign  lands.  I 
affect  no  contempt  for  the  high  eminence  he  has  reached. 
So  reached,  that  the  oppressed  of  my  species  might  have 
shared  with  me  in  the  elevation,  I  would  rather  stand  on 
that  eminence  than  wear  the  richest  crown  that  ever  pressed 
a  monarch's  brow."  We  know,  the  world  knows,  that  Lin 
coln  did  reach  that  high,  nay,  far  higher  eminence,  and  that 
he  did  reach  it  in  such  a  way  that  the  "  oppressed  of  his 
species  "  shared  with  him  in  the  elevation. 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  each  of  these  great  men 
believed,  at  that  time,  that  he  was  right.  Douglas  had  that 
ardor  of  temperament  which  would  make  him  believe  while 
in  the  midst  of  such  a  conflict  that  he  was  right,  and  Lin 
coln's  friends  all  know  that  he  argued  for  freedom  and 
against  slavery  with  the  most  profound  conviction  that  the 
fate  of  his  country  hung  on  the  result.  He  said  to  a  friend 
duringthe  canvass:  "  Sometimes  in  the  excitement  of  speak 
ing  I  seem  to  see  the  end  of  slavery.  I  feel  that  the  time  is 
soon  coming  when  the  sun  shall  shine,  the  rain  fall,  on  no 
man  who  shall  go  forth  to  unrequited  toil."  *  *  "  How 
this  will  come,  when  it  will  come,  by  whom  it  will  come,  I 
cannot  tell — but  that  time  will  surely  come." 

Lincoln  had  several  advantages  over  Douglas  in  this 
conflict.  He  had  the  right  side,  the  side  of  liberty,  the  side 
towards  which  the  tide  of  popular  feeling  was  setting  with 

1.  See  Holland's  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  155. 


THE  LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS  DEBATE.  145 

tremendous  force.  Then  he  had  the  better  temper,  he  was 
always  good  humored;  while  Douglas,  when  hard  pressed, 
was  sometimes  irritable.  Lincoln's  wit  and  humor,  his  apt 
stories  for  illustration  were  an  immense  advantage,  especially 
when  addressing  a  popular  assembly.  Speaking  then,  for  his 
country,  for  the  principles  of  the  fathers,  and  for  freedom, 
his  eloquence  surpassed  all  his  own  previous  efforts.  His 
lips  seemed  at  times  touched  by  fire  from  off  the  very  altar 
of  liberty.  Patrick  Henry  had  always  been  his  ideal  orator,, 
and  both  Henry  and  Lincoln  were  great  men  by  nature,  both 
country-bred  and  self-educated.  Patrick  Henry  had  little 
of  Lincoln's  humor,  but  Lincoln  had  at  times  the  fire  and 
enthusiasm  of  him  who  said  :  "  Give  me  liberty  or  give  me 
death."  It  was  liberty  that  made  Henry  so  eloquent;  it  was 
the  same  theme  that  made  Lincoln  so  great. 

Douglas,  perhaps,  carried  away  the  more  popular  applause. 
Lincoln  made  the  deeper,  and  more  lasting  impression. 
Douglas  did  not  disdain  an  immediate,  ad  captandum  triumph, 
while  Lincoln  aimed  at  permanent  conviction.  Sometimes, 
when  Lincoln's  friends  urged  him  to  raise  a  storm  of  applause, 
which  he  could  always  do  by  his  happy  illustrations  and  amus 
ing  stories,  he  refused,  saying:  "  The  occasion  is  too  serious; 
the  issues  are  too  grave.  I  do  not,"  said  he,  "  seek  applause, 
or  to  amuse  the  people,  but  to  convince  them."  It  was 
observed,  in  the  canvass,  that  while  Douglas  was  greeted 
with  the  loudest  cheers,  when  Lincoln  closed,  the  people 
seemed  serious  and  thoughtful,  and  could  be  heard  all 
through  the  crowds,  gravely  and  anxiously  discussing  the 
subjects  on  which  he  had  been  speaking. 

The  echo  and  the  prophecy  of  this  great  debate  were 
heard,  and  inspired  hope,  in  the  far-off  cotton  and  rice  fields 
of  the  South.  The  toiling  and  superstitious  negroes  began 
to  hope  for  freedom,  and  in  a  mysterious  way  (did  the 
sibylline  lips  of  the  Voudou  whisper  it  ? ),  faith  was  inspired 
in  them  that  their  deliverance  was  at  hand,  that  their  liber 
ator  was  on  the  earth.  In  the  words  of  Whittier,  they  lifted 
up  their  prayer: 
10 


146  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

' '  We  pray  de  Lord.     He  gib  us  signs 

Dat  some  day  we  be  free; 
De  Norf  winds  tell  it  to  de  pines, 
De  wild  duck  to  de  sea. 

"  We  tink  it  when  de  church  bell  ring; 

We  dream  it  in  de  dream; 
De  rice  bird  mean  it  when  he  sing; 
De  eagle  when  he  scream." 

The  friends  of  Douglas,  who  managed  the  machinery  of 
the  campaign,  did  it  well.  A  special  train  of  cars,  a  band  of 
music,  a  cannon  to  thunder  forth  his  approach,  and  a  party 
•of  ardent  and  enthusiastic  friends  accompanied  him  to  cheer 
and  encourage;  so  that  his  passage  from  place  to  place  was 
like  that  of  a  conquering  hero. 

The  democratic  party,  so  long  dominant  in  Illinois,  were 
now,  from  Douglas  down,  confident,  and  his  partisans  full 
of  bluster  and  brag.  They  everywhere  boasted,  and  were 
ready  to  bet,  that  their  "  little  giant"  would  "  use  up  and 
utterly  demolish  '  old  Abe '.  "  They  were  so  noisy  and 
demonstrative;  they  seemed  so  absolutely  sure  of  success, 
that  many  of  the  republicans,  unconscious  of  the  latent 
power  of  Lincoln,  became  alarmed.  Douglas  had  so  uni 
formly  triumphed,  and  his  power  over  the  people  was  so 
great,  that  many  were  disheartened,  and  feared  the  ordeal  of 
a  joint  discussion,  which  would  certainly  expose  the  weaker 
man.  This  feeling  was  apparent  in  the  editorials  of  some 
of  the  leading  republican  newspapers. 

Just  before  the  first  joint  discussion,  which  was  to  take 
place  at  Ottawa,  there  was  a  large  gathering  at  the  Chenery 
House,  then  the  leading  hotel  at  Springfield.  The  house 
was  filled  with  politicians,  and  so  great  was  the  crowd,  that 
large  numbers  were  out  of  doors,  in  the  street,  and  on  the 
sidewalk.  Lincoln  was  there,  surrounded  by  his  friends, 
but  it  is  said  l  that  he  looked  careworn  and  weary.  He  had 
become  conscious  that  some  of  his  party  friends  distrusted 
his  ability  to  meet  successfully  a  man  whom,  as  the  demo- 

1.  By  H.  W.  Beckwitn,  of  Danville,  Vermillion  Co.,  Illinois. 


THE  LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS  DEBATE.  147 

crats  declared  and  believed,  had  never  had  his  equal  on  the 
stump.  Seeing  an  old  friend  from  Vermillion  County,  Lincoln 
came  up,  and,  shaking  hands,  inquired  the  news.  His  friend 
replied:  "All  looks  well,  our  friends  are  wide  awake,  but — ," 
he  continued,  "  they  are  looking  forward  with  some  anxiety 
to  these  approaching  joint  discussions  with  Douglas."  A 
shade  passed  over  Lincoln's  face,  a  sad  expression  came  and 
instantly  passed,  and  then  a  blaze  of  light  flashed  from  his 
eyes,  and  his  lips  quivered.  "  I  saw,"  said  his  friend,  "  that 
he  had  penetrated  my  feelings  and  fears,  and  that  he  knew 
of  the  apprehensions  of  his  friends.  With  his  lips  com 
pressed,  and  with  a  manner  peculiar  to  him,  half  jocular,  he 
said  :  '  My  friend,  sit  down  a  minute,  and  I  will  tell  you  a 
story.'  We  sat  down  on  the  door  step  leading  into  the  hotel, 
and  he  then  continued  :  '  You  and  I,  as  we  have  traveled  the 
circuit  together  attending  court,  have  often  seen  two  men 
about  to  fight.  One  of  them,  the  big,  or  the  little  giant, 
as  the  case  may  be,  is  noisy,  and  boastful ;  he  jumps  high  in 
the  air,  strikes  his  feet  together,  smites  his  fists,  brags  about 
what  he  is  going  to  do,  and  tries  hard  to  skeer  the  other  man. 
The  other  says  not  a  word.'  Lincoln's  manner  became  earn 
est,  and  his  look  firm  and  resolute.  *  The  other  man  says 
not  a  word,  his  arms  are  at  his  side,  his  fists  are  clenched,  his 
teeth  set,  his  head  settled  firmly  on  his  shoulders,  he  saves 
his  breath  and  strength  for  the  struggle.  This  man  will 
whip,  just  as  sure  as  the  fight  comes  off.  Good-bye,'  said 
he,  *  and  remember  what  I  say.'  From  that  moment,  I  felt 
as  certain  of  Lincoln's  triumph,  as  after  it  was  won." 

The  joint  discussion  at  Charleston,  was  on  the  i8th  of 
September.  This  was  in  Lincoln's  old  circuit,  where  he  was 
personally  known,  and  popular,  but  a  majority  of  the  people 
were  politically  opposed  to  him.  There  was  a  vast  throng, 
eager  to  witness  the  contest.  Many  were  in  wagons,  having 
taken  with  them  their  provisions,  and  camping  out  in  the 
groves  at  night.  It  was  estimated  that  twenty  thousand  peo 
ple  were  in  attendance. 

Lincoln,  on  that  day,  had  the  opening  and  the  close. 


148  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

This  was  the  fourth  joint  discussion,  and  no  one  who  wit 
nessed  it  could  ever  after  doubt  Lincoln's  ample  ability  to  meet 
Douglas.  The  "  little  giant  "  and  his  friends,  had  learned 
that  there  were  blows  to  be  received,  as  well  as  to  be  given. 
The  Senator,  who  had  begun  the  canvass  at  Ottawa,  aggres 
sive  and  overbearing,  had  learned  caution,  and  that  he  must 
husband  his  resources.  Ugly  questions  had  been  propounded 
to  him,  which  it  was  difficult  for  him  to  answer.  His  action 
in  relation  to  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  which 
he  was  trying  to  justify,  enabled  Lincoln  to  keep  him  on  the 
defensive.  In  reply  to  Douglas's  charge  against  Lincoln, 
of  arousing  sectional  feeling,  and  leading  a  sectional  party, 
the  reply  was  always  ready:  "  It  was  you,  Douglas,  that 
started  the  great  conflagration;  it  was  you  that  set  the  dry 
prairie  on  fire,  by  repealing  the  Missouri  Compromise." 

Douglas's  reply  to  Lincoln  at  Charleston,  was  mainly  a 
defense.  Lincoln's  close  was  intensely  interesting  and  dra 
matic.  His  logic  and  arguments  were  crushing,  and  Doug 
las's  evasions  were  exposed,  with  a  power  and  clearness 
that  left  him  utterly  discomfited.  Republicans  saw  it,  demo 
crats  realized  it,  and  "  a  sort  of  panic  seized  them,  and  ran 
through  the  crowd  of  up-turned  faces."  l  Douglas  real 
ized  his  defeat,  and,  as  Lincoln's  blows  fell  fast  and  heavy, 
he  lost  his  temper.  He  could  not  keep  his  seat,  he  rose  and 
walked  rapidly  up  and  down  the  platform,  behind  Lincoln, 
holding  his  watch  in  his  hand,  and  obviously  impatient  for 
the  call  of  "  time."  A  spectator  says  :  "  He  was  greatly  agi 
tated,  his  long  grizzled  hair  waving  in  the  wind,  like  the 
shaggy  locks  of  an  enraged  lion." 

It  was  while  Douglas  was  thus  exhibiting  to  the  crowd 
his  eager  desire  to  stop  Lincoln,  that  the  latter,  holding  the 
audience  entranced  by  his  eloquence,  was  striking  his  heav 
iest  blows.  The  instant  the  second  hand  of  his  watch  reached 
the  point  at  which  Lincoln's  time  was  up,  Douglas,  holding 
up  the  watch,  called  out  :  "  Sit  down,  Lincoln,  sit  down. 
Your  time  is  up." 

1.  The  expression  of  a  spectator. 


THE  LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS  DEBATE.  149 

Turning  to  Douglas,  Lincoln  said  calmly :  "  I  will.  I 
will  quit.  I  believe  my  time  is  up."  "Yes,"  said  a  man  on 
the  platform,  "  Douglas  has  had  enough,  it  is  time  you  let 
him  up."  And  this  spectator  expressed  the  feeling  of  friend 
and  foe,  concerning  this  battle  of  the  giants. 

Douglas  had  declared  that  certain  telling  charges  made 
by  Senator  Trumbull,  and  indorsed  by  Lincoln,  were  false. 
He  did  not  deny  the  facts  stated  by  Trumbull,  nor  attempt 
by  argument  to  disprove  the  conclusions  which  were  drawn, 
but  coarsely  said  that  Trumbull  had  declared  and  Lincoln 
indorsed  what  was  false.  In  reply,  Lincoln  used  this  fine 
illustration,  exposing  the  ad  captandum  argument  :  "  Why, 
sir,"  exclaimed  Lincoln,  "  there  is  not  a  statement  in  Trum- 
bull's  speech  that  depends  upon  Trumbull's  veracity.  Why 
does  he  not  answer  the  facts?"  *  *  *  *  "  If,"  con 
tinued  he,  "  you  have  ever  studied  geometry,  you  remember 
that  by  a  course  of  reasoning  Euclid  proves  that  all  the 
angles  in  a  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles.  Euclid 
has  shown  how  to  work  it  out.  Now,  if  you  undertook  to 
disprove  that  proposition,  to  show  that  it  was  erroneous, 
would  you  do  it  by  calling  Euclid  a  liar  ?  That  is  the  way 
Judge  Douglas  answers  Trumbull."1  The  result  of  this 
memorable  campaign,  so  far  as  the  voters  were  concerned, 
was  a  drawn  battle.  Douglas  was  re-elected  to  the  Senate, 
but  the  manly  bearing,  the  vigorous  logic,  the  great  ability 
and  love  of  liberty  exhibited  by  Lincoln  in  these  debates, 
secured,  two  years  later,  his  nomination  and  election  to  the 
Presidency. 

The  debates  and  debaters  have  passed  into  history,  and 
the  world  has  pronounced  Lincoln  the  victor  ;  but  it  should 
be  remembered  that  Lincoln  spoke  for  liberty  and  a  young 
and  enthusiastic  party,  and  that  Douglas,  while  a  candidate 
for  the  Senate,  was  looking  also  to  the  White  House,  and 
that,  while  he  kept  one  eye  on  Illinois,  he  had  to  keep  the 
other  on  the  slaveholders.  Thus  he  was  hampered  and  em 
barrassed,  but  he  made  a  brilliant  canvass.  It  should  not  be 

1.    Lincoln  and  Douglas  Debates,  p.  160. 


150  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

forgotten  that  the  whole  power  of  Buchanan's  administra 
tion  was  used  to  aid  in  his  defeat.  The  patronage  of  the 
Federal  Government,  in  the  hands  of  the  unscrupulous 
Slidell,  was  used  against  him. 

There  was  something  almost  heroic  in  the  gallantry  with 
which  Douglas  threw  himself  into  the  contest,  and  dealt  his 
blows  right  and  left,  against  the  republican  party  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  Buchanan  administration  on  the  other. 
Douglas's  great  power  as  a  leader,  and  his  personal  popu 
larity,  are  exhibited  in  the  facts  that  every  democratic  mem 
ber  of  Congress  from  Illinois  stood  by  him  faithfully,  that 
the  Democratic  State  Convention  indorsed  him,  and  that  no 
considerable  impression  against  him  could  be  made  by  all 
the  power  and  patronage  of  the  administration.  l  Therejs^ 
on  the  whole,  hardly  any  greater  personal  triumph  in  the 
history  of  American  politics,  than  his  re-election. 

No  extracts  from  these  debates  can  do  anything  like  jus 
tice  to  their  merits.  They  were  entirely  extemporaneous, 
and  the  reports  which  were  made  and  widely  circulated  in 
book  and  pamphlet,  while  full  of  striking  and  beautiful  pas 
sages,  of  strong  arguments,  and  keen  repartee,  are  disap 
pointing  and  unsatisfactory  to  those  who  had  the  great 
pleasure  of  listening  to  them. 

At  the  discussion  at  Freeport,  Lincoln  replied,  with  per 
fect  fairness  and  frankness,  to  various  questions  of  Douglas; 
questions  skillfully  framed  to  draw  out  unpopular  opinions, 
and  such  as  should  be  especially  obnoxious  to  the  extreme 
anti-slavery  men.  Lincoln  answered  all  without  evasion.  He 
then  in  turn  propounded  certain  questions  to  Douglas,  and 
among  others,  questions  designed  to  expose  the  inconsis 
tency  of  the  Senator,  in  upholding  his  doctrine  of  "  popular 
sovereignty/'  and  that  part  of  the  Dred  Scott*  decision  in 
which  the  court  declared  that  the  people — the  "  popular 
sovereigns,"  had  no  right  to  exclude  slavery.  His  second 

1.  The  popular  vote  stood  thus:  Lincoln,  126,084;  Douglas,  121,940;  Buchanan, 
5,091.  Douglas  was  elected  by  the  party  with  a  minority  vote,  because  some  demo 
cratic  senators,  representing  republican  districts,  held  over. 


THE  LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS  DEBATE.  151 

interrogatory  was:  "  Can  the  people  of  a  United  States  ter 
ritory,  in  any  lawful  way,  against  the  wish  of  any  citizen  of 
the  United  States,  exclude  slavery  from  its  limits,  prior  to  the 
formation  of  a  state  constitution."  It  was  in  reference  to  this 
that  a  friend  of  Lincoln  said:  "  If  Douglas  answers  in  such 
a  way  as  to  give  practical  force  and  effect  to  the  Dred  Scott 
decision,  he  inevitably  loses  the  battle;  but  he  will  reply,  by 
declaring  the  decision  an  abstract  proposition;  he  will  adhere 
to  his  doctrine  of  '  squatter  sovereignty,'  and  declare  that  a 
territory  may  exclude  slavery."  "  If  he  does  that,"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln,  "he  can  never  be  President."  "But,"  said  the 
friend,  "  he  maybe  Senator."  "  Perhaps,"  replied  Lincoln, 
"but  I  am  after  larger  game;  the  battle  of  1860  is  worth  a 
hundred  of  this." 

It  was  obviously  impossible  to  reconcile  Douglas's  posi 
tion  at  Freeport,  and  elsewhere,  that  "  the  people  could 
exclude  slavery  if  they  pleased,  and  that  their  right  to  do  so 
was  perfect  and  complete,  under  the  Nebraska  bill,"  with  the 
decision  of  the  Court,  that  the  people  of  the  territory  could 
do  nothing  of  the  kind.  The  Court  said  that  a  master  had 
the  right,  under  the  Constitution,  to  take,  and  hold  his  slaves, 
in  all  the  territories.  If  so,  slavery  could  not  be  excluded 
by  the  people  of  the  territory.  Lincoln,  in  one  of  those 
terse,  clear  sentences,  into  which  he  often  condensed  a  whole 
speech,  exposed  the  absurdity  of  this.  "Douglas  holds," 
said  he,  "  that  a  thing  may  lawfully  be  driven  away  from  a 
place  where  it  has  a  lawful  right  to  go."  He  thus  describes 
his  appreciation  of  the  momentous  issue:  "  I  do  not  claim 
to  be  unselfish.  I  do  not  pretend  that  I  would  not  like  to  go 
to  the  United  States  Senate."  *  *  *  "  But  I  say  to  you, 
that  in  this  mighty  issue,  it  is  nothing  to  the  mass  of  the  peo 
ple  of  the  nation,  whether  or  not  Judge  Douglas  or  myself 
shall  ever  be  heard  of  after  this  night.  It  may  be  a  trifle  to- 
us,  but  in  connection  with  this  mighty  issue,  upon  which,  per 
haps,  hang  the  destinies  of  the  nation,  it  is  absolutely 
nothing." 

At  their  last  joint  discussion  in  October,  at  Alton,  where 


152  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Lovejoy,  twenty  one  years  before,  had  been  killed  because 
of  his  fidelity  to  freedom,  Lincoln,  in  closing  the  debate, 
said:  "Is  slavery  wrong  ?  That  is  the  real  issue.  That 
is  the  issue  that  will  continue  in  this  country  when  these  poor 
tongues  of  Judge  Douglas  and  myself  shall  be  silent.  It  is 
the  eternal  struggle  between  these  two  principles — right  and 
wrong — throughout  the  world.  They  are  two  principles  that 
have  stood  face  to  face  from  the  beginning  of  time;  and  will 
ever  continue  to  struggle.  The  one  is  the  common  right  of 
humanity,  and  the  other  the  divine  right  of  kings.  It  is  the 
same  principle  in  whatever  shape  it  developes  itself.  It  is  the 
same  spirit  that  says:  'You  work,  and  toil,  and  earn  bread, 
and  I'll  eat  it.'  No  matter  in  what  shape  it  comes,  whether 
from  the  mouth  of  a  king  who  seeks  to  bestride  the  people 
of  his  own  nation,  and  live  by  the  fruit  of  their  labor,  or 
from  one  race  of  men,  as  an  apology  for  enslaving  another 
race,  it  is  the  same  tyrannical  principle."  *  *  * 

"  On  this  subject  of  treating  it  (slavery)  as  a  wrong,  and 
limiting  its  spread,  let  me  say  a  word.  Has  anything  ever 
threatened  the  existence  of  the  Union,  save  and  except  this 
very  institution  of  slavery  ?  What  is  it  that  we  hold  most 
dear  among  us  ?  Our  own  liberty  and  prosperity.  What 
has  ever  threatened  our  liberty  and  prosperity,  save  and 
except  this  institution  of  slavery  ?  If  this  is  true,  how  do 
you  propose  to  improve  the  condition  of  things  by  enlarging 
slavery  ?  By  spreading  it  out  and  making  it  bigger  ?  You 
may  have  a  wen  or  cancer  upon  your  person,  and  not  be 
able  to  cut  it  out  lest  you  bleed  to  death;  but  surely  it  is 
not  the  way  to  cure  it,  to  engraft  it  and  spread  it  over  your 
whole  body.  That  is  no  proper  way  of  treating  what  you 
regard  as  wrong.  You  see  this  peaceful  way  of  dealing 
with  it  as  a  wrong — restricting  the  spread  of  it,  and  not 
allowing  it  to  go  into  new  countries,  where  it  has  not  already 
existed.  That  is  the  peaceful  way,  the  old  fashioned  way, 
the  way  in  which  the  fathers  themselves  set  us  the  example." 


CHAPTER  X. 

LINCOLN    BECOMES    PRESIDENT. 

DOUGLAS  RE-ELECTED  TO  THE  SENATE. — LINCOLN  ASSESSED  FOR  EX 
PENSES  OF  THE  CANVASS. — VISIT  TO  KANSAS. — CALLED  TO  OHIO. 
— SPEAKS  AT  COLUMBUS  AND  CINCINNATI. — IN  THE  NEW  ENGLAND 
STATES. — SHRINKS  FROM  THE  CANDIDACY. — COOPER  INSTITUTE 
SPEECH. — NOMINATED  FOR  PRESIDENT. — His  ELECTION. 

THE  great  intellectual  conflict  was  over.  Lincoln,  weary 
but  not  exhausted,  returned  to  his  home  at  Springfield,  and 
when  the  returns  came  in,  it  appeared  that  he  had  won  the 
victory  for  his  cause,  his  party,  and  his  country.  The  re 
publican  state  ticket  was  elected;  he  had  carried  a  majority 
of  the  popular  vote,  but  he  was  again  baffled  in  obtaining 
the  position  of  Senator,  which  he  so  much  desired.  A  suffi 
cient  number  of  Douglas  democrats  elected  two  years  before 
from  districts  now  republican,  still  held  over,  and  inequali 
ties  in  the  apportionment  enabled  Douglas  to  control  a 
small  majority  of  the  Legislature,  although  defeated  in  the 
popular  vote. 

As  soon  as  this  became  known,  a  perfect  ovation  was 
given  to  that  popular  idol.  After  a  little  rest,  the  Senator 
started  for  Washington,  by  way  of  the  Mississippi  river. 
Popular  receptions  awaited  him  at  St.  Louis,  at  Memphis, 
and  at  New  Orleans.  Taking  a  steamer  to  New  York,  on 
his  arrival  in  that  city,  he  was  welcomed  by  a  great  con 
course  of  people,  and  this  welcome  was  repeated,  with  the 
utmost  enthusiasm,  at  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and  Wash 
ington. 

Lincoln  was  resting  quietly  at  his  little  cottage  in  Spring- 


154  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

field.  He  had  been  speaking  constantly  from  July  to  No 
vember,  for  both  he  and  Douglas,  when  not  engaged  in 
joint  discussion,  were  speaking  elsewhere.  He  was  cheer 
ful,  and  apparently  so  gratified  with  the  result,  that  he 
almost  forgot  his  personal  disappointment.  It  does  not 
appear  that  the  honors  lavished  upon  his  rival  disturbed  his 
sleeping  or  waking  hours.  At  the  end  of  the  canvass,  both 
Douglas  and  Lincoln  visited  Chicago;  Douglas  was  so 
hoarse  that  he  could  scarcely  articulate,  and  it  was  painful 
to  hear  him  attempt  to  speak.  Lincoln's  voice  was  clear 
and  vigorous,  and  it  really  seemed  in  better  tone  than  usual. 
His  dark  complexion  was  bronzed  by  the  prairie  sun  and 
winds,  but  his  eye  was  clear,  his  step  firm,  and  he  looked 
like  a  trained  athlete,  ready  to  enter,  rather  than  one  who 
had  closed  a  conflict. 

On  the  1 6th  of  November,  in  reply  to  a  letter  of  the 
Chairman  of  the  State  Committee  relating  to  the  expendi 
tures  of  the  canvass,  he  says: 

"  I  have  been  on  expense  so  long,  without  earning  anything,  that  I 
am  absolutely  without  money  now  to  pay  for  even  household  expenses. 
Still,  you  can  put  in  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  for  me  towards  dis 
charging  the  debt  of  the  committee.  I  will  allow  it  when  we  settle  the 
private  matter  between  us."  *  * 

"  This,  too,  is  exclusive  of  my  ordinary  expenses  during  the  cam 
paign,  all  of  which,  added  to  my  loss  of  time  and  business,  bears  heavily 
on  one  no  better  off  than  I  am."  l 

He  owned  at  this  time  the  little  house  and   lot  on  which 

1.  The  letter  is  as  follows: 

SPRINGFIELD,  Nov.  16,  1858. 

HON.  N.  B.  JTTDD— My  Dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  15th  Is  just  received.  I  wrote 
you  the  same  day.  As  to  the  pecuniary  matter,  I  am  willing  to  pay  according  to  my 
ability,  but  I  am  the  poorest  hand  living  to  get  others  to  pay.  I  have  been  on  expense 
so  long,  without  earning  anything,  that  I  am  absolutely  without  money  now  for  even 
household  expenses.  Still,  if  you  can  put  in  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  for  me 
towards  discharging  the  debt  of  the  committee,  I  will  allow  it  when  you  and  I  settle 
the  private  matter  between  us.  This,  with  what  I  have  already  paid  with  an  out 
standing  note  of  mine,  will  exceed  my  subscription  of  five  hundred  dollars.  This,  too, 
is  exclusive  of  my  ordinary  expenses  during  the  campaign,  all  of  which  being  added  to 
my  loss  of  time  and  business,  bears  pretty  heavily  upon  one  no  better  off  than  I  am. 
But  as  I  had  the  post  of  honor,  it  is  not  for  me  to  be  over-nice.  You  are  feeling 
badly,  '  and  this,  too,  shall  pass  away,'  never  fear. 

Yours  as  ever,  A.  LINCOLN. 


LINCOLN  BECOMES  PRESIDENT.  155 

he  lived,  and  a  few  law-books,  and  was  earning  not  to 
exceed  three  thousand  dollars  per  annum  in  his  profession. 
He  was  not  then  worth  over  ten  or  fifteen  thousand  dollars 
altogether. 

One  would  suppose  that  the  sacrifice  of  time  and  money 
involved  in  paying  his  own  expenses  in  the  canvass,  had 
fully  met  his  share  of  the  cost,  and  that  the  committee 
would  have  raised  the  money  they  had  expended,  from  the 
wealthy  members  of  the  party  in  Chicago  and  elsewhere, 
rather  than,  under  the  circumstances,  have  called  upon 
their  candidate  for  the  Senate.  The  close  of  his  letter: 
"  You  are  feeling  badly,"  "  and  this  too  shall  pass  away, 
never  fear,"  shows  that  so  far  from  feeling  chagrin  or 
depression  over  his  defeat,  he  had  a  word  of  cheer  for  his 
friends. 

In  the  autumn  of  1859  he  visited  Kansas,  and  the  people 
of  that  young  commonwealth  received  him  as  one  who  had 
so  eloquently  plead  their  cause  should  be  received. 

That  Lincoln's  friends  began,  during  the  debates  of  1858, 
seriously  to  consider  him  as  an  available  candidate  for  the 
Presidency,  is  well  known.  Late  in  the  autumn  of  that  year, 
after  the  close  of  the  canvass,  some  of  his  friends  proposed 
to  begin  an  organization  with  the  view  of  bringing  him 
before  the  people  for  nomination  in  1860.  Mr.  Fell,  of 
Bloomington,  Secretary  of  the  Republican  State  Central 
Committee,  had  an  interview  with  him  on  the  subject.1 

Lincoln  discouraged  the  proposition,  and  said  that  he 
was  not  well  enough  known.  "What,"  said  he,  "is  the  use 
of  talking  of  me,  whilst  we  have  such  men  as  Seward  and 
Chase,  and  everybody  knows  them,  and  scarcely  anybody, 
outside  of  Illinois,  knows  me?  Besides,"  said  he,  "as  a 
matter  of  justice,  is  it  not  due  to  them?"  In  reply,  his 
friends  urged  his  great  availability,  on  the  ground  that  he 
was  not  obnoxious  as  a  radical,  or  otherwise.  They 
reminded  him  that  the  party  was  in  a  minority;  that  defeated 

1.  See  a  full  statement  of  this  interview  in  the  Lincoln  Memorial  Album,  pp.  477- 
478. 


156  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

in  1856,  with  Fremont,  they  would  be  beaten  in  1860 — unless 
a  great  many  new  votes  could  be  obtained.  These  would 
be  repelled  by  the  extreme  utterances  and  votes  of  Seward 
and  Chase,  but  on  the  simple  issue  of  opposing  the  exten 
sion  of  slavery,  an  issue  with  which  Lincoln  was  distinctly 
identified,  a  majority  could  probably  be  obtained.  That,  by 
his  debate  with  Douglas,  he,  more  than  any  other  man  in 
the  nation,  represented  that  distinct  issue,  and  that  he  had 
no  embarrassing  record  ;  that  he  was  personally  popular,  and 
that  with  him  for  their  candidate,  the  republican  party  had  a 
fair  chance  of  success.  Nothing  came  of  this  conference  at 
that  time,  but  it  was  not  forgotten. 

In  the  autumn  of  1859,  Douglas  visited  Ohio,  and  made 
a  canvass  for  the  democratic  party.  On  his  appearance,  the 
cry  arose  at  once :  "  Where  is  Lincoln,  the  man  who  beat 
him  in  Illinois  ?  Send  for  him!  "  Lincoln  was  sent  for.  He 
came,  and  spoke  with  great  ability,  at  Columbus  and  at  Cin 
cinnati,  and,  at  the  latter  place,  addressed  himself  especially 
to  Kentuckians.  He  said,  among  other  things,  that  they 
ought  to  nominate  for  President  "  my  distinguished  friend, 
Judge  Douglas."  "In  my  opinion  it  is,"  says  he,  "for  you 
'to  take  him  or  be  beaten." 

A  portion  of  this  speech  was  as  follows: 

"  I  should  not  wonder  that  there  are  some  Kentuckians  about  this 
audience;  we  are  close  to  Kentucky;  and  whether  that  be  so  or  not,  we 
are  on  elevated  ground,  and  by  speaking  distinctly,  I  should  not  wonder 
if  some  of  the  Kentuckians  would  hear  me  on  the  other  side  of  the  river. 
For  that  purpose  I  propose  to  address  a  portion  of  what  I  have  to  say  to 
the  Kentuckians.  *  *  I  have  told  you  what  we  mean  to  do.  I  want 
to  know  now,  when  that  thing  takes  place,  what  you  mean  to  do.  I 
often  hear  it  intimated  that  you  mean  to  divide  the  Union  whenever  a 
republican,  or  anything  like  it,  is  elected  President  of  the  United  States. 
(A  voice — '  That  is  so.')  '  That  is  so,'  one  of  them  says;  I  wonder  if 
he  is  a  Kentuckian?  (A  voice — '  He  is  a  Douglas  man.')  Well,  then, 
I  want  to  know  what  you  are  going  to  do  with  your  half  of  it  ?  Are  you 
going  to  split  the  Ohio  down  through,  and  push  your  half  off  a  piece  ? 
Or  are  you  going  to  keep  it  right  alongside  of  us  outrageous  fellows  ? 
Or  are  you  going  to  build  up  a  wall  some  way  between  your  country  and 
ours,  by  which  that  movable  property  of  yours  can't  come  over  here  any 


LINCOLN  BECOMES  PRESIDENT.  157 

more,  to  the  danger  of  your  losing  it  ?  Do  you  think  you  can  better  your 
selves  on  that  subject,  by  leaving  us  here  under  no  obligation  whatever  to 
return  those  specimens  of  your  movable  property  that  come  hither  ?  You 
have  divided  the  Union  because  we  would  not  do  right  with  you,  as  you 
think,  upon  that  subject;  when  we  cease  to  be  under  obligations  to  do 
anything  for  you,  how  much  better  off  do  you  think  you  will  be?  Will 
you  make  war  upon  us  and  kill  us  all  ?  Why,  gentlemen,  I  think  you 
are  as  gallant  and  as  brave  men  as  live;  that  you  can  fight  as  bravely  in 
a  good  cause,  man  for  man,  as  any  other  people  living;  that  you  have 
shown  yourselves  capable  of  this  upon  various  occasions;  but  man  for  man, 
you  are  not  better  than  we  are,  and  there  are  not  so  many  of  you  as  there 
are  of  us.  You  will  never  make  much  of  a  hand  at  whipping  us.  If  we 
were  fewer  in  numbers  than  you,  I  think  that  you  could  whip  us;  if  we 
were  equal  it  would  likely  be  a  drawn  battle;  but  being  inferior  in  num 
bers,  you  will  make  nothing  by  attempting  to  master  us." 

This  speech  showed  how  confident  he  was  of  success.  It 
defined  his  position,  and  added  much  to  his  popularity. 

In  December,  1859,  the  feeling  in  favor  of  his  nomina 
tion  for  the  Presidency  had  become  so  general,  that  he  con 
sented  to  permit  his  friends  to  take  such  steps  as  they  deemed 
expedient  to  bring  him  forward  as  a  candidate  for  the  nom 
ination.  On  the  2oth  of  December,  he  gave  to  Mr.  Fell 
that  modest  paper  giving  some  details  of  his  life,  which  has 
already  been  set  forth  in  the  early  part  of  this  volume. 

On  Tuesday  evening,  February  27th,  1860,  Mr.  Lincoln 
delivered,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  the  Cooper  Institute 
speech  ;  a  speech  that  probably  did  more  to  secure  his  nom 
ination,  than  any  other  act  of  his  life.  He  had  become 
widely  known  as  the  successful  stump-speaker  against  Doug 
las.  It  was  known  that  he  was  an  able,  effective  debater, 
but  many  supposed  that  he  was  a  mere  declaimer,  and  suc 
cessful  stump-speaker  only  ;  that  with  much  coarse  humor, 
he  was  probably  superficial.  True,  he  had  beaten  Douglas, 
and  by  beating  Douglas,  he  had  beaten  the  whole  field  ;  but 
exactly  what  manner  of  man  he  was,  nobody  outside  of  Illi 
nois  knew.  Great  curiosity  was  manifested  to  hear  this  West 
ern  prodigy,  this  prairie  orator,  this  rough,  uncouth,  unlearned 
backwoodsman.  He  realized  all  this,  and  his  Cooper  Insti 
tute  speech,  either  designedly,  or  otherwise,  was  admirably 


158  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

adapted  to  remove  prejudice,  and  create  confidence.    It  was 
the  speech  of  a  statesman. 

Cooper  Institute,  an  immense  hall,  was  filled  to  its  utmost 
capacity.  Horace  Greeley,  who,  in  the  New  York  Tribune, 
had  advised  the  Illinois  republicans  not  to  oppose  Douglas 
in  his  canvass  for  the  Senate,  and  who  had  thus,  by  implica 
tion,  opposed  Lincoln,  now  said  :  "  No  man  has  been  wel 
comed  by  such  an  audience  of  the  intellect  and  mental  cul 
ture  of  our  city,  since  the  days  of  Clay  and  Webster." 

On  the  platform  were  the  most  distinguished  scholars, 
jurists,  and  divines  of  the  city.  Bryant,  the  poet,  presided, 
and  introduced  the  speaker.  Never  was  an  audience  more 
surprised,  and  never  more  delighted.  It  was  a  political  argu 
ment  ;  brief,  profound,  and  exhaustive.  Instead  of  rant, 
declamation,  striking  and  witty  points,  it  was  a  calm,  clear, 
learned,  dignified,  and  complete  exposition  of  the  whole  sub 
ject  ;  the  speech  of  a  scholar,  and  showed  that  he  was  an 
accurate  and  laborious  student  of  history. .  There  is  com 
pressed  into  it  such  an  amount  of  historical  learning,  stated 
in  the  simplest  language,  as  within  such  a  compass,  is  per 
haps  unparalleled. 

The  argument  demonstrating  the  right  of  Congress  to 
prohibit  slavery  in  the  territories,  and  that  such  was  the 
understanding  of  "  our  fathers,"  who  framed  the  Constitu 
tion  and  organized  the  government,  has  never  been  sur 
passed;  it  never  has  been,  nor  can  it  be,  successfully  answered. 
The  effort  was  so  dignified,  and  exhibited  so  much  learning, 
and  such  thorough  mastery  of  the  subject,  that,  coming  from 
a  source  whence  this  kind  of  excellence  was  not  expected, 
it  was  a  surprise  and  revelation,  and,  therefore,  made  the 
greater  impression.  He  awoke  the  next  morning  to  find 
himself  famous.  He  closed  his  great  argument  with  these 
words  :  "  Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might,  and  in 
that  faith,  let  us  to  the  end  dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we  under 
stand  it."  The  speech  was  published  in  full  by  the  New 
York  Tribune  and  other  papers,  and  scattered  all  over  the 
Union,  and  it  perfectly  satisfied  the  thoughtful  and  intellect- 


^ 

V  *>    Q.T.    Tfl'', 


LINCOLN  BECOMES  PRESIDENT. 

ual  men  of  the  republican  party  as  to  Lincoln's  great  in 
lectual  power  and  wise  moderation,  and  it  prepared  the  way 
for  his  nomination  Subsequently,  he  spoke  in  Connecticut, 
Rhode  Island,  and  New  Hampshire,  everywhere  making  per 
sonal  friends,  and  leaving  a  lasting  impression  of  his  great 
ability. 

A  clergyman  of  Norwich,  Connecticut,  who  heard  him  in 
that  city,  met  him  the  following  day  in  the  cars.  Introduc 
ing  himself,  he  said: 

"  Your  speech  last  night  was  the  most  remarkable  I  ever 
heard."  "  I  should  like  to  know,"  said  Lincoln,  "  what  there 
was  you  thought  so  remarkable  ?"  The  clergyman  replied: 
"  The  clearness  of  your  statements,  the  unanswerable  style  of 
your  reasoning,  and  especially  your  illustrations,  which  were 
romance  and  pathos,  fun  and  logic,  all  welded  together."  » 

The  presidential  election  of  1860  now  approached.  The 
storm  of  political  excitement,  North  and  South,  was  raging 
with  intense  violence.  The  democratic  convention  to  nomi 
nate  candidates  was  called  to  meet  at  Charleston,  S.  C.,  in 
April.  Douglas  was  the  popular  candidate  in  the  free 
states,  with  many  strong  personal  friends  in  the  slave  states. 
The  politicians  of  that  party  believed,  as  Lincoln  had  told 
them  at  Cincinnati,  that  they  must  take  Douglas  or  be 
defeated.  But  the  ultra  slaveholders,  as  a  class,  were  bit 
terly  opposed  to  him,  on  account  of  his  opposition  to  the 
Lecompton  Constitution,  and  his  replies  to  Lincoln  at  Free- 
port,  Illinois.  Hitherto  the  North  had  generally  yielded  to 
the  more  determined  leaders  among  the  slaveholders,  and 
many  supposed  that  the  friends  of  Douglas,  as  those  of 
Benton,  Van  Buren,  and  Wright  had  done  in  days  gone  by, 
would  yield,  and  permit  the  nomination  of  some  negative 
man,  some  compromise  candidate.  An  Illinois  republican, 
a  short  time  before  the  Charleston  convention,  said  to  Colonel 
Richardson,  one  of  Douglas's  efficient  friends,  and  one  likely 
to  lead  his  friends  in  that  convention: 

"  Douglas  will  be  sacrificed.     As  Van  Buren  was  sacri- 

1.  The  Rev.  John  Sullivan.    New  York  Independent,  September  1st,  1864. 


l6o  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ficed  because  of  his  opposition  to  Texas  annexation,  so  the 
South  will  sacrifice  Douglas  because  he  opposed  Lecompton.'r 

"  No,"  replied  Richardson,  "  the  South  will  find  Doug 
las's  friends  as  firm  and  determined  as  they  are.  We  have 
the  majority,  and  our  leader  shall  not  be  sacrificed.  The 
South  will  find  they  have  now  to  deal  with  the  West,  with 
men  as  determined  as  themselves." 

In  the  Charleston  convention  was  a  large  party  who  were 
secessionists,  disunionists,  and  who  desired  separation. 
They  meant  to  push  matters  to  extremes,  to  divide  the 
democratic  party,  thereby  rendering  the  success  of  the 
republican  party  certain,  and  then  to  make  the  election  of  a 
republican  a  pretext  for  the  dissolution  of  the  Union. 

The  first  thing  done  after  organization  was  the  adoption 
of  a  platform.  A  majority  reported  resolutions  declaring 
that  neither  Congress  nor  a  territorial  legislature  had  any 
power  to  abolish  or  prohibit  slavery  in  the  territories,  "  nor 
to  impair  or  destroy  the  right  of  property  in  slaves  by  any 
legislation  whatever."  This  was  intended  to  be,  and  was,  a 
direct  repudiation  of  Douglas's  doctrine  of  popular  sov 
ereignty,  and  his  friends  knew  that  they  might  as  well  give 
up  the  canvass  as  go  before  the  people  with  this  platform. 
A  minority  of  the  committee,  but  representing  states  which 
held  a  decided  majority  of  the  electoral  votes,  reported 
resolutions  re-affirming  the  platform  adopted  by  the  national 
convention  at  Cincinnati  four  years  before;  declaring  that 
"  inasmuch  as  there  were  differences  of  opinion  in  the  demo 
cratic  party  as  to  the  powers  of  a  territorial  legislature,  and 
as  to  the  powers  and  duties  of  Congress  under  the  Constitu 
tion  over  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  territories,  the 
democratic  party  would  abide  by  the  decrees  of  the  Supreme 
Court  on  questions  of  constitutional  law."  Butler,  of  Massa 
chusetts,  reported  the  old  Cincinnati  platform.  After  voting 
down  Mr.  Butler's  proposition,  the  convention  adopted  the 
minority  report.  This  was  supported  by  the  friends  of 
Douglas. 

Thereupon  L.  P.  Walker,  subsequently  the  rebel  Secre- 


LINCOLN  BECOMES  PRESIDENT.  l6l 

tary  of  War,  presented  the  protest  of  the  delegates  from 
Alabama,  and  these  delegates  withdrew  from  the  conven 
tion.  Among  these  delegates  was  William  L.  Yancey,  long 
before  a  notorious  secessionist.  The  delegates  from  Missis 
sippi,  Louisiana,  Texas,  South  Carolina,  Florida,  Arkansas, 
Georgia,  and  Delaware  thereupon  also  withdrew.  The  con 
vention  then  resolved  that  it  should  require  two-thirds  of  a 
full  convention  to  nominate.  After  balloting  several  timesr 
on  each  of  which  ballots  Mr.  Douglas  had  a  large,  but  not 
the  two-thirds  majority  required,  the  convention  adjourned 
to  meet  at  Baltimore  on  the  iSth  of  June.  The  seceding 
delegates  adjourned  to  meet  at  Richmond  on  the  second 
Monday  in  June. 

The  Baltimore  convention  met  and  nominated  Stephen 
A.  Douglas  for  President,  and  Benjamin  Fitzpatrick,  of  Ala 
bama,  for  Vice-President;  but  on  his  declining,  Herschel  V, 
Johnson,  of  Georgia,  was  substituted.  The  convention  of 
the  seceders  met  at  Richmond,  and,  adopting  the  resolu 
tions  of  the  majority  of  the  committee,  nominated  John  C. 
Breckenridge,  of  Kentucky,  for  President,  and  Colonel 
Joseph  Lane,  of  Oregon,  for  Vice-President.  The  disrup 
tion  of  the  democratic  party  was  hailed  with  delight  by  the 
infatuated  people  of  Charleston  and  other  parts  of  the  rebel 
states  as  the  prelude  to  the  breaking  up  of  the  Union. 

The  republican  convention  had  been  called  to  meet  at 
Chicago  on  the  i6th  of  May.  On  the  loth  of  May,  the  Illi 
nois  republican  state  convention  was  held  at  Decatur,  in 
Macon  County,  to  nominate  state  officers  and  appoint  dele 
gates  to  the  national  presidential  convention.  This  was  not 
very  far  from  where  Lincoln's  father  had  settled  and  worked 
a  farm  in  1830,  and  where  young  Abraham  Lincoln  and 
Thomas  Hanks  had  split  the  rails  for  enclosing  the  old 
pioneer's  first  corn  field.  On  the  gth  of  February  preced 
ing,  Lincoln  had  written  a  characteristic  letter  to  Mr.  Judd, 
the  chairman  of  the  state  central  committee,  in  which  he 
said  :  "  I  am  not  in  a  position  where  it  would  hurt  much 
for  me  not  to  be  nominated  on  the  national  ticket,  but  I  am 
ii 


I  62  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

where  it  would  hurt  some  forme  not  to  get  the  Illinois  dele 
gates."  1 

Lincoln  was  present  at  the  Decatur  convention,  and  as 
he  entered  the  hall  he  was  received  with  such  demonstrations 
of  attachment  as  left  no  doubt  as  to  the  wishes  of  Illinois  on 
the  question  of  his  nomination.  When  he  was  seated,  Gen 
eral  Oglesby  announced  that  an  old  democrat  of  Macon 
County  desired  to  make  a  contribution  to  the  convention. 
Immediately  some  farmers  brought  into  the  hall  two  old 
fence  rails,  bearing  the  inscription  :  "  Abraham  Lincoln,  the 
rail  candidate  for  the  Presidency  in  1860.  Two  rails  from 
a  lot  of  three  thousand,  made  in  1830,  by  Thomas  Hanks 
and  Abe  Lincoln,  whose  father  was  the  first  pioneer  of  Macon 
County" 

The  effect  of  this  cannot  be  described.  For  fifteen 
minutes,  cheer  upon  cheer  went  up  from  the  crowd.  Lin 
coln  was  called  to  the  stand,  but  his  rising  was  the  signal  for 
renewed  cheering,  and  this  continued  until  the  audience  had 
exhausted  itself,  and  then  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  a  history  of 
these  two  rails,  and  of  his  life  in  Macon  County.  He  told 
the  story  of  his  labor  in  helping  to  build  his  father's  log 
cabin,  and  fencing  in  a  field  of  corn.  This  dramatic  scene 
was  not  planned  by  politicians,  but  was  the  spontaneous 
action  of  the  old  pioneers.  The  effect  it  had  upon  the  peo 
ple  satisfied  all  present  that  it  was  a  waste  of  words  to  talk 
in  Illinois  of  any  other  man  than  Abraham  Lincoln  for 
President. 

No  public  man  had  less  of  the  demagogue  than  Mr.  Lin 
coln.  He  never  mentioned  his  humble  life,  or  his  manual 
labor,  for  the  purpose  of  getting  votes.  He  knew  perfectly 

1.  "  SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  February  9,  1860. 

"  HON.  N.  B.  JUDD — Dear  Sir:  I  am  not  la  a  position  where  It  would  hurt  much 
for  me  not  to  be  nominated  on  the  national  ticket;  but  I  am  where  it  would  hurt  some 
for  me  not  to  get  the  Illinois  delegates.  What  I  expected  when  I  wrote  the  letter  to 
Messrs.  Dole  and  others  is  now  happening.  Your  discomfited  assailants  are  more  bit 
ter  against  me,  and  they  will,  for  revenge  upon  me,  lay  to  the  Bates  egg  in  the  South 
and  the  Seward  egg  in  the  North,  and  go  far  towards  squeezing  me  out  In  the  middle 
with  nothing.  Can  you  not  help  me  a  little  in  this  matter  in  your  end  of  the  vine 
yard?  (I  mean  this  to  be  private.)  Yours  aa  ever,  A.  LINCOLN." 


LINCOLN  BECOMES  PRESIDENT.  163 

well  that  it  did  not  follow  because  a  man  could  split  rails, 
that  he  would  make  a  good  statesman  or  President.  So  far 
from  having  any  feeling  of  this  kind,  he  realized  painfully 
the  defects  of  his  education,  and  did  his  utmost  to  supply 
the  deficiencies.  When  told  that  the  people  were  talking  of 
making  him  President,  he  said  :  "  They  ought  to  select  some 
one  who  knows  more  than  I  do."  But  while  he  did  not 
think  any  more  of  himself  because  he  had  in  early  life  split 
rails,  he  had  too  much  real  dignity  to  lose  any  self-respect 
on  that  account. 

The  committee  appointed  to  select  delegates  to  the  na 
tional  convention,  submitted  the  list  of  names  to  him. 
As  illustrating  how  presidents  are  nominated,  I  will  add  that 
the  committee,  and  other  personal  friends  of  Lincoln,  among 
whom  were  Judd,  David  Davis,  Swift,  Cook,  and  others, 
retired  from  the  convention,  and,  in  a  grove  near  by,  lay 
down  upon  the  grass  and  revised  the  list  of  delegates,  which 
they  reported  to,  and  which  were  appointed  by,  the  con 
vention. 

An  immense  building  called  the  "  Wt'gwam,"  and  capable 
of  holding  many  thousands  of  people,  had  been  erected 
especially  for  the  meeting  of  the  national  convention.  A 
full,  eager,  and  enthusiastic  representation  was  present  from 
all  the  free  states,  together  with  representatives  from  Dela 
ware,  Maryland,  Kentucky,  Missouri,  and  Virginia,  and  some 
scattering  representatives  from  some  of  the  other  slave 
states  ;  but  the  Gulf  states  were  not  represented.  Indeed, 
few  of  the  slave  states  were  fully  and  perfectly  represented. 
On  motion  of  Governor  Morgan,  chairman  of  the  national 
executive  committee,  David  Wilmot,  author  of  the  Wilmot 
proviso,  was  made  temporary  chairman,  and  George  Ash- 
mun,  of  Massachusetts,  permanent  president. 

There  was  not  much  difficulty  about  the  platform.  The 
convention  resolved  "  that  the  new  dogma  that  the  Constitu 
tion  carried  slavery  into  all  the  territories,  was  a  dangerous 
political  heresy,  revolutionary  in  tendency,  and  subversive  of 


V 


164  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  country  ;  that  the  normal 
condition  of  all  the  territories  is  that  of  freedom  ;  that 
neither  Congress,  the  territorial  legislature,  nor  any  individ 
ual,  could  give  legal  existence  to  slavery  ;  that  Kansas 
ought  to  be  immediately  admitted  as  a  free  state  ;  that  the 
opening  of  the  slave  trade  would  be  a  crime  against  human 
ity."  It  declared  also  in  favor  of  a  homestead  law,  harbor 
and  river  improvements,  and  the  Pacific  railroad. 

The  leading  candidates  for  the  nomination  for  President, 
were  William  H.  Seward,  of  New  York  ;  Abraham  Lincoln, 
of  Illinois  ;  Salmon  P.  Chase,  of  Ohio  ;  Simon  Cameron,  of 
Pennsylvania  ;  and  Edward  Bates,  of  Missouri  ;  but  it  early 
became  apparent  that  the  contest  was  between  Seward  and 
Lincoln.  Mr.  Seward  had  been  for  many  years  a  leading 
statesman.  Governor  of  New  York,  and  long  its  most  dis 
tinguished  senator  ;  he  had  brought  to  the  discussions  of 
the  great  issue  between  liberty  and  slavery,  a  philosophic 
mind,  broad  and  catholic  views,  great  sagacity,  and  an  ele 
vated  love  of  liberty  and  humanity.  Few,  if  any,  had  done 
more  to  enlighten,  create,  and  consolidate  public  opinion  in 
the  free  states.  His  position  had  been  far  more  conspicuous 
than  that  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Hence  he  had  been  supposed  to 
be  more  in  the  way  of  rivals,  and  had  become  the  object  of 
more  bitter  personal  and  political  hostility. 

The  Illinois  candidate  was  principally  known,  outside  of 
the  Northwest,  as  the  competitor  of  Douglas.  Yet  the  sobri 
quet  of  "  honest  old  Abe,  the  rail-splitter  of  Illinois,"  had 
extended  throughout  the  free  states  ;  he  had  no  enemies, 
and  was  the  second  choice  of  nearly  all  those  delegates  of 
whom  he  was  not  the  first.  He  was  supposed  by  shrewd 
politicians  to  have,  and  he  did  possess,  those  qualities  which 
make  an  available  candidate.  Although  a  resident  of  the 
state,  he  did  not  attend  the  convention,  but  was  quietly  at 
his  home  in  Springfield. 

Few  men  of  that  convention  realized,  or  had  the  faintest 
foreshadowing  of  the  terrible  ordeal  of  civil  war,  which  was 
before  the  candidate  whom  they  should  nominate  and  the 


LINCOLN  BECOMES  PRESIDENT.  165 

people  elect.     Yet  there  seems  to  have  been  a  peculiar  pro-  *' 
priety  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  nomination  ;  and  there  was  here  illus 
trated  that  instinctive  sagacity,  or  more  truly,  providential 
guidance,  which  directs  a  people  in  a  critical  emergency  to 
act  wisely. 

Looking  back,  we  now  see  how  wise  the  selection.  The 
Union  was  to  be  assailed  ;  Lincoln  was  from  the  national 
Northwest,  which  would  never  surrender  its  great  communi- 
•cations  with  the  ocean,  by  the  Mississippi,  or  the  East.  The 
great  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  were  to 
be  assailed  by  vast  armies  ;  his  political  platform  had  ever 
been  that  Declaration.  Aristocratic  power,  with  the  sympa 
thy  of  the  kings  and  nobility  of  Europe,  was  to  make  a 
gigantic  effort  to  crush  liberty  and  democracy  ;  it  was  fit 
that  the  great  champion  of  liberty,  of  a  government  "  of  the 
people,  for  the  people,  by  the  people,"  should  be  a  man,  born 
on  the  wild  prairie,  nurtured  in  the  rude  log  cabin,  and 
reared  amidst  the  hardships  and  struggles  of  humble  life. 

On  the  first  ballot,  Mr.  Seward  received  173^  votes,  to 
102  for  Lincoln  ;  the  others  being  divided  on  Messrs.  Cam- 
•eron,  Chase,  Bates,  and  others.  On  the  second  ballot,  Mr. 
Seward  received  184,  to  181  for  Mr.  Lincoln.  On  the  third 
ballot  Mr.  Lincoln  received  a  majority,  and  his  nomination 
was  then  made  unanimous. 

An  incident  occurred,  which,  but  for  the  tact  and  elo 
quence  of  George  William  Curtis,  a  delegate  from  New 
York,  might  have  proved  a  serious  blunder.  Cartter,  of  Ohio, 
'chairman  of  the  committee,  reported  the  resolutions  consti 
tuting  the  platform,  and  endeavored  to  put  them  through 
under  the  previous  question.  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  the  old 
gray-haired  veteran  anti-slavery  leader  from  the  Western 
Reserve,  Ohio,  begged  Cartter  to  withdraw  the  previous  ques 
tion,  so  that  he  might  offer  an  amendment.  Cartter  refused 
>but  on  a  vote,  the  previous  question  was  not  sustained.  The 
convention  was  not  willing  to  treat  the  great  Ohio  abolition 
ist  with  rudeness,  but  was  obviously  afraid  of  his  radicalism. 
He  offered  an  amendment,  embracing  that  part  of  the  Dec- 


I  66  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

laration  of  Independence,  which  declares  that  "  all  men  are 
created  equal,  and  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator 
with  certain  inalienable  rights,"  etc.  He  accompanied  his 
motion  with  a  most  earnest  and  eloquent  speech,  but  the  con 
vention,  by  a  large  majority,  rejected  the  amendment. 

The  venerable  old  man  was  grieved  and  disappointed, 
and,  being  the  representative  man  of  the  abolitionists,  it  was 
feared  the  result  would  create  coolness,  or  drive  away  these 
earnest  men  from  supporting  the  ticket.  Many  members  of 
the  convention  were  still  very  much  afraid  of  abolitionism. 
The  party  was  far  from  homogeneous,  and  there  was  danger 
of  a  rupture.  At  this  crisis,  George  William  Curtis,  one  of 
the  most  scholarly,  earnest,  and  enthusiastic  young  men  in 
the  republic,  came  forward,  and  renewed  Giddings's  amend 
ment,  slightly  altered,  and  in  a  speech  of  ten  or  fifteen 
minutes,  electrified,  and  carried  with  him  the  convention. 
"  Is  this  convention  prepared,"  cried  he,  "  to  vote  down  the 
Declaration  of  your  fathers,  the  charter  of  American 
liberty  ? " 

The  speech  was  impromptu,  but  vehement  and  eloquent 
beyond  description.  It  was  received  with  deafening 
applause,  and  he  carried  with  him  the  convention;  the  amend 
ment  was  adopted  by  almost  universal  acclamation.  No 
speaker  ever  achieved  a  more  brilliant  immediate  triumph 
than  young  Curtis.  It  was  touching  to  see  old  Mr.  Giddings 
as  he  went  up  to  Curtis,  and  throwing  his  arms  around  his 
neck,  exclaimed:  "  God  bless  you,  my  boy.  You  have  saved 
the  republican  party.  God  bless  you."  Curtis  certainly  did 
save  the  party  from  a  great  blunder,  if  from  nothing  worse. 

On  the  first  day  of  the  convention,  the  friends  of  Lincoln 
discovered  that  there  was  an  organized  body  of  New  York 
ers  and  others  in  the  "  Wigwam,"  who  cheered  vociferously 
whenever  Seward's  name  was  mentioned,  or  any  allusion  was 
made  to  him.  The  New  Yorkers  did  the  shouting,  Lincoln's 
friends  were  modest  and  quiet. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Illinois  delegation  at  the  Tremont, 
on  the  evening  of  the  first  day,  at  which  Judd,  Davis,  Cook, 


LINCOLN  BECOMES  PRESIDENT.  167 

and  others  were  present,  it  was  decided,  that  on  the  second 
day,  Illinois  and  the  West  should  be  heard.  There  was  then 
living  in  Chicago,  a  man  whose  voice  could  drown  the  roar 
of  Lake  Michigan  in  its  wildest  fury;  nay,  it  was  said  that 
his  shout  could  be  heard  on  a  calm  day,  across  that  lake; 
Cook,  of  Ottawa,  knew  another  man,  living  on  the  Illinois 
River,  a  Dr.  Ames,  who  had  never  found  his  equal  in  his 
ability  to  shout  and  huzza.  He  was,  however,  a  democrat. 
Cook  telegraphed  to  him  to  come  to  Chicago  by  the  first 
train.  These  two  men,  with  stentorian  voices,  met  some  of 
the  Illinois  delegation  at  the  Tremont  House,  and  were 
instructed  to  organize,  each  a  body  of  men  to  cheer  and 
shout,  which  they  speedily  did  out  of  the  crowds  which  were 
in  attendance  from  the  Northwest.  They  were  placed  on 
opposite  sides  of  the  "Wigwam,"  and  instructed  that  when 
Cook  took  out  his  white  handkerchief,  they  were  to  cheer, 
and  not  to  cease  until  he  returned  it  to  his  pocket.  Cook  was 
conspicuous  on  the  platform,  and,  at  the  first  utterance  of  the 
name  of  Lincoln,  simultaneously  with  the  wave  of  Cook's  hand 
kerchief,  there  went  up  such  a  cheer,  such  a  shout  as  had  never 
before  been  heard,  and  which  startled  the  friends  of  Seward,  as 
the  cry  of  "  Marmion  "  on  Flodden  Field  "  startled  the  Scottish 
foe."  The  New  Yorkers  tried  to  follow  when  the  name  of 
Seward  was  spoken,  but,  beaten  at  their  own  game,  their 
voices  were  instantly  and  absolutely  drowned  by  cheers  for 
Lincoln.  This  was  kept  up  until  Lincoln  was  nominated, 
amidst  a  storm  of  applause  never  before  equalled. 

Ames  was  so  carried  away  with  his  own  enthusiasm  for 
Lincoln,  that  he  joined  the  republican  party,  and  continued 
to  shout  for  Lincoln  during  the  whole  campaign;  he  was 
afterwards  rewarded  with  a  country  post-office.  The  New 
York  delegation  were  greatly  disappointed  and  chagrined, 
especially  the  immediate  personal  friends  of  Thurlow  Weed 
and  Mr.  Seward. 

Horace  Greeley,  while  not  especially  pleased  with  Lin 
coln's  nomination  (his  candidate  having  been  Edward  Bates, 
of  Missouri),  had  telegraphed  to  his  paper,  the  New  York 


I  68  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Tribune,  at  2  A.  M.  on  the  night  preceding  the  day  of  Lin 
coln's  nomination  :  "  Seward  will  be  nominated  to-morrow." 
He  now  rejoiced  at  the  defeat  of  Weed  and  Seward,  but  the 
New  York  delegation  could  not  understand  how  it  was  done. 
On  the  second  day  Seward  had  lacked  but  a  very  few  votes, 
and  their  confidence  in  Weed,  who  had  long  and  successfully 
managed  the  politics  and  controlled  the  conventions  of  the 
Empire  State,  was  so  great,  that  he  had  acquired  the  title  of 
the  "  Warwick  of  New  York."  He  was  the  "  King  maker." 

They  wondered  greatly  how  the  Illinois  boys  had  man 
aged  to  beat  the  old  veteran,  and  especially  when,  as  many 
thought,  he  held  the  winning  cards  in  his  hands.  The  can 
vass  for  Lincoln  had  been  skillfully  conducted,  and  his 
personal  friends,  and  especially  Mr.  Judd,  the  chairman  of 
the  delegation,  together  with  David  Davis  and  others,  were 
entitled  to  great  credit. 

There  was  in  the  New  York  delegation,  an  eloquent  and 
jovial  member,  James  W.  Nye,  afterward  Senator  from 
Nevada.  He  was  a  great  wag  ;  his  wit  and  humor  were 
well  known,  and  the  echo  of  the  laughter  caused  by  his 
jokes  and  stories  had  been  heard  from  the  Hudson  to  Lake 
Michigan.  The  Illinois  delegation  was  in  session,  anxiously 
considering  how  the  friends  of  Seward  and  Weed  could  be 
satisfied,  so  that  they  would  give  the  ticket  their  cordial  and 
hearty  support.  A  knock  at  the  door  was  heard,  and  the 
door-keeper  announced:  " General  Nye,  of  New  York. 
He  says  he  has  a  message  from  New  York  to  Illinois." 

"  Admit  him  instantly,"  said  Judd,  the  chairman. 

The  General  entered. 

"  What  can  Illinois  do  for  New  York? "  enquired  Judd. 
"  Name  it,  and  if  in  our  power,  consider  it  done." 

"Well,"  said  Nye,  "if  you  sucker  boys  will  please  send 
an  Illinois  school-master  to  Albany  to  teach  Thurlow  Weed 
his  political  alphabet,  we  will  be  greatly  obliged." 

The  Illinois  delegation  appreciated  the  compliment. 

While  the  convention  was  in  session,  Lincoln  was  at  his 
home  in  Springfield.  The  proceedings  and  the  result  of 


LINCOLN  BECOMES  PRESIDENT.  169 

each  ballot  were  immediately  communicated  to  him  by  a 
telegraph  wire  extending  from  the  "Wigwam."  At  the 
time  of  the  second  ballot,  Lincoln  was  with  some  friends  in 
the  office  of  the  "Sangamon  Journal."  Soon  a  gentleman 
hastily  entered  from  the  telegraph  office,  bearing  a  slip 
of  paper,  on  which  his  nomination — the  result  of  the  third 
ballot — was  written.  He  read  the  paper  to  himself,  and 
then  aloud,  and  then,  without  stopping  to  receive  the  con 
gratulations  of  his  friends,  he  said :  "  There  is  a  little 
woman  down  at  our  house  who  will  like  to  hear  this.  I'll  go 
down  and  tell  her."  The  incident  speaks  eloquently  of  the 
affectionate  relations  between  him  and  his  wife.  She  was 
far  more  anxious  that  he  should  be  President  than  he  him 
self  was,  and  her  early  dream  was  now  to  be  realized. 

No  words  can  adequately  describe  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  this  nomination  was  received  in  Chicago,  in  Illinois, 
and  throughout  the  Northwest.  A  man  who  had  been 
placed  on  top  of  the  Wigwam  to  announce  to  the  thousands 
outside  the  progress  of  the  balloting,  as  soon  as  the  secretary 
read  the  result  of  the  third  ballot  shouted  to  those  below: 
"Fire  the  salute — Lincoln  is  nominated!"  The  cannon  was 
fired,  and  before  its  reverberations  died  away  a  hundred 
thousand  voters  of  Illinois  and  the  neighboring  states  were 
shouting,  screaming,  and  rejoicing  at  the  result.  Hannibal 
Hamlin,  of  Maine,  was  nominated  for  Vice-President.  The 
nomination  of  Lincoln  was  hailed  with  intense  enthusiasm, 
not  only  by  the  crowds  in  attendance  and  the  Northwest, 
but  throughout  the  free  states.  Everywhere  the  people 
were  full  of  zeal  for  the  champion  from  the  West.  Never 
did  a  party  enter  upon  a  canvass  with  more  earnest  devotion 
to  principle  than  the  republican  party  of  1860.  Love  of 
country,  devotion  to  liberty,  hatred  of  slavery,  pervaded  all 
hearts.  A  keen  sense  of  the  wrongs  and  outrages  inflicted 
upon  the  free  state  men  of  Kansas,  the  vrolence,  and  in 
many  instances  the  savage  cruelty,  by  which  freedom  of 
speech  and  liberty  of  the  press  had  been  suppressed  in  por 
tions  of  the  slave  states,  and  strong  indignation  at  the  long 


I  70  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

catalogue  of  crimes  of  the  slaveholders,  fired  all  hearts. 
Confident  of  success,  and  determined  to  leave  nothing 
undone  to  secure  it,  the  republican  party  entered  upon  the 
canvass. 

This  Presidential  campaign  has  had  no  parallel.  The 
enthusiasm  of  the  people  was  like  a  great  conflagration,  like 
a  prairie  fire  before  a  wild  tornado.  A  little  more  than 
twenty  years  had  passed  since  Owen  Lovejoy,  brother  of 
Elijah  Lovejoy,  on  the  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  kneeling  on 
the  turf  not  then  green  over  the  grave  of  the  brother  who 
had  been  killed  for  his  fidelity  to  freedom,  had  sworn  eternal 
war  against  slavery.  From  that  time  on,  he  and  his  associate 
abolitionists  had  gone  forth  preaching  their  crusade  against 
oppression,  with  hearts  of  fire  and  tongues  of  lightning,  and 
now  the  consummation  was  to  be  realized  of  a  President 
elected  on  the  distinct  ground  of  opposition  to  the  extension 
of  slavery.  For  years  the  hatred  of  that  institution  had 
been  growing  and  gathering  force.  Whittier,  Bryant, 
Lowell,  Longfellow,  and  others,  had  written  the  lyrics  of 
liberty;  the  graphic  pen  of  Mrs.  Stowe,  in  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,"  had  painted  the  cruelties  of  the  overseer  and  the 
slaveholder,  but  the  acts  of  slaveholders  themselves  did 
more  to  promote  the  growth  of  anti-slavery  than  all  other 
causes.  The  persecutions  of  abolitionists  in  the  South;  the 
harshness  and  cruelty  attending  the  execution  of  the  fugitive 
slave  laws;  the  brutality  of  Brooks  in  knocking  down,  on  the 
floor  of  the  Senate,  Charles  Sumner,  for  words  spoken  in 
debate;  these  and  many  other  outrages  had  fired  the  hearts 
of  the  people  of  the  free  states  against  this  barbarous  insti 
tution.  Beecher,  Phillips,  Channing,  Sumner,  and  Seward, 
with  their  eloquence;  Chase,  with  his  logic;  Lincoln,  with  his__ 
appeals  to  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence,  and  to  the  opinions  of  the  founders  of  the  republic,  his 
clear  statements,  his  apt  illustrations,  above  all,  his  wise 
moderation — all  had  swelled  the  voice  of  the  people,  which 
found  expression  through  the  ballot-box,  and  which  declared 
that  slavery  should  go  no  further.  It  was  now  proclaimed 


LINCOLN  BECOMES  PRESIDENT.  I  71 

that  "  the  further  spread  of  slavery  should  be  arrested,  and 
it  should  be  placed  where  the  public  mind  should  rest  in  the 
belief  of  its  ultimate  extinction." 

A  most  remarkable  feature  of  the  campaign  was  the 
personal  canvass  made  by  Douglas.  This  is  almost  the  only 
instance  in  which  a  presidential  candidate  has  taken  the  / 
stump  in  his  own  behalf.  The  division  in  the  democratic 
party  must  have  destroyed  any  hope  on  his  part  of  success; 
yet  he  made  a  personal  canvass,  displaying  all  the  vigor,  and 
spirit,  and  eloquence,  for  which  he  was  so  distinguished. 
He  spoke  in  most  of  the  free,  and  in  many  of  the  slave 
states,  and  his  appeals  were  against  Breckenridge  on  one 
side,  and  Lincoln  on  the  other,  as  representing  sectionalism, 
while  he  assumed  that  he  carried  the  banner  of  the  Union. 
If  the  efforts  of  any  one  man  could  have  changed  the  result, 
his  would  have  changed  it,  but  they  were  in  vain.  Lincoln 
received  180  electoral  votes,  and  a  popular  vote  of  1,866,452. 
Douglas  received  12  electoral  votes,  and  1,375,157  of  the 
popular  vote.  Breckenridge  received  72  electoral,  and  a 
popular  vote  of  847,953;  and  Bell  39  electoral  votes,  and 
590,631  of  the  popular  vote.  By  the  success  of  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  the  executive  power  of  the  country  passed  from  the 
hands  of  the  slaveholders.  They  had  controlled  the  govern 
ment  for  much  the  larger  portion  of  the  time  during  which 
it  had  existed. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

LINCOLN  REACHES  WASHINGTON. 

BUCHANAN'S  WEAKNESS. — TRAITORS  IN  HIS  CABINET. — EFFORTS  TO 
COMPROMISE. — SEVEN  STATES  SECEDE  AND  ORGANIZE  PROVISIONAL 
GOVERNMENT. — COUNTING  THE  ELECTORAL  VOTE. — LINCOLN 
STARTS  FOR  WASHINGTON. — His  JOURNEY. — ASSASSINATION  PLOT. 
— ARRIVAL  AT  THE  CAPITAL. 

ON  the  yth  of  November,  1860,  it  was  known  throughout 
the  republic,  that  Lincoln  had  been  elected.  Not  until  the 
4th  of  March  could  he  be  inaugurated.  Meanwhile  the 
clouds,  black  and  threatening,  were  gathering  at  the  South. 
It  was  evident  that  mischief  was  brewing.  South  Carolina 
rejoiced  over  the  election  of  Lincoln,  with  bonfires  and  pro 
cessions.  His  election  furnished  a  pretext  for  rebellion.  A 
conspiracy  had  existed  since  the  days  of  nullification,  to 
seize  upon  the  first  favorable  opportunity  to  break  up  the 
Union.1 

For  the  four  eventful  months  between  Lincoln's  election 
and  inauguration,  conspirators  against  the  Union  would 
still  have  control  of  the  government.  Buchanan,  a  weak, 
old  man,  was  influenced  to  a  great  extent  by  traitors  in  his 
cabinet,  and  conspirators  in  Congress.  A  majority  of  his 

1.  In  October,  1856,  a  meeting  of  the  governors  of  slave  states  was  held  at  Ra 
leigh,  North  Carolina,  convened  at  the  instance  of  Governor  Wise,  who  afterward 
proclaimed  that  if  Fremont  had  been  elected,  he  would  have  marched  to  Washing 
ton  at  the  head  of  twenty  thousand  men,  and  prevented  his  inauguration. 

Mr.  Keltt,  member  of  Congress  from  South  Carolina,  said  In  the  convention  of 
his  state,  which  adopted  the  ordinance  of  secession:  "I  have  been  engaged  in  this 
movement  ever  since  I  entered  political  life." 

Mr.  Rhett  said:  "  The  secession  of  South  Carolina  is  not  the  event  of  a  day.  It 
is  not  anything  produced  by  Mr.  Lincoln's  election,  or  the  non-enforcement  of  the 
fugitive  slave  law.  It  is  a  matter  that  hasbeen  gathering  head  for  thirty  years." 

172 


LINCOLN  REACHES  WASHINGTON.  I  73; 

Cabinet  were  open  disunionists — secessionists,  who  retained 
their  places,  and  used  their  power  to  disarm  and  dismantle 
the  ship  of  state,  that  it  might  be  surrendered  an  easy  con 
quest  to  those  preparing  to  seize  it.  Mr.  Memminger,  of 
South  Carolina,  who  became  the  rebel  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  boasted  that  Buchanan  being  President,  the  Fede 
ral  Government  would  be  taken  at  great  disadvantage,  and 
it  was  necessary  to  prepare  things,  so  that  Lincoln  would  be 
for  a  while  powerless. 

On  the  1 2th  of  December,  Lewis  Cass,  Secretary  of 
State,  resigned,  because  the  President  refused  to  reinforce 
the  forts  in  Charleston  harbor.  Jeremiah  S.  Black,  who,  as- 
Attorney  General  of  Buchanan,  had  given  an  opinion  that 
the  Federal  Government  had  no  power  to  coerce  a  seceding 
state,  was  his  successor.  Howell  Cobb,  of  Georgia,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  afterwards  a  general  in  the 
rebel  army,  managed  to  destroy  the  credit  of  the  govern 
ment,  and  when,  December  10,  he  resigned,  because  his 
"duty  to  Georgia  required  it,"  he  left  the  treasury  empty. 

John  B.  Floyd,  soon  to  hold  the  rank  of  general  in  the 
rebel  army,  was  Secretary  of  War.  Before  he  resigned,  he 
partly  disarmed  the  free  states,  by  transferring  the  arms  in, 
the  northern  arsenals  to  the  slave  states,  and  he  sent  the  few 
soldiers  belonging  to  the  United  States  regular  army  so  far 
away  as  not  to  be  available,  until  the  conspirators  should 
have  time  to  consummate  the  revolution.  Isaac  Toucey,  of 
Connecticut,  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  scattered  the  navy 
beyond  seas,  so  that  the  naval  force  should  be  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  government.  Such  were  the  bold,  unscrupulous 
acts  of  the  conspirators.  Some  of  them  intended  to  prevent 
the  inauguration  of  Lincoln,  and  to  surrender  the  Capitol 
and  the  public  archives  to  the  insurgents,  and  it  is  probable 
that  they  would  have  carried  out  this  design,  but  for  the 
fact  that  General  Winfield  Scott  was  at  the  head  of  the 
army,  and  that  with  him  was  a  small  but  reliable  force,  so 
that  an  overt  act  of  treason  might  have  been  dangerous. 

But  the  leaders  of  the  conspiracy  went  forward  in  their 


I  74  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

guilty  preparations  with  impunity.  If  Buchanan  had  dis 
missed  the  traitors  in  his  Cabinet,  arrested  the  conspirators 
at  the  capital,  called  to  his  aid  strong  and  loyal  men,  and 
declared  like  General  Jackson:  u  The  Union  must  be  pre 
served,"  it  is  possible  that  the  conspiracy  might  have  been 
crushed  in  its  inception.  But  he  was  weak,  vacillating,  and 
like  clay  in  the  hands  of  Jefferson  Davis,  Cobb,  Toombs, 
and  their  associates.  The  strange  spectacle  was  presented 
of  a  government  in  the  hands  of  conspirators  plotting  to 
overthrow  it.  From  the  official  desks  and  portfolios  of  its 
officers  were  sent  forth  their  messages  of  treason.  While 
in  Congress,  and  in  the  Cabinet,  the  conspirators  were  boldly 
carrying  on  their  schemes  for  the  overthrow  of  the  govern 
ment,  no  attempt  was  made  to  interfere  with,  much  less  to 
arrest,  open  and  avowed  traitors. 

I  have  said  that  nothing  was  done  ;  yet  this  is  not  strictly 
true.  The  feeble  old  man  in  the  executive  chair  did  appoint 
a  day  of  fasting,  humiliation,  and  prayer  ;  declaring  that, 
though  secession  was  wrong,  he  had  no  power  to  prevent  it. 
Meanwhile  the  conspirators  were  laboring  industriously  to 
make  the  revolution  an  accomplished  fact  before  the  inaugu 
ration  of  Lincoln,  or,  if  they  could  not  accomplish  this,  then 
by  plundering  the  government,  securing  the  forts,  ships,  and 
munitions  of  war,  they  meant  to  leave  Lincoln  with  no  means 
at  his  command  wherewith  to  protect  and  maintain  the 
government,  and  put  down  the  rebellion. 

Some  of  the  democratic  party  were  indignant  at  the  con 
duct  of  the  Executive.  General  Cass,  as  has  been  stated, 
resigned  because  the  President  refused  to  reinforce  Fort 
Moultrie,  held  by  the  gallant  and  faithful  Major  Anderson. 
Joseph  Holt,  of  Kentucky,  succeeded  Floyd  as  Secretary  of 
War.  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  bold,  staunch,  and  true,  succeeded 
Black  as  Attorney  General,  and  General  John  A.  Dix  was 
appointed  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Stanton,  Dix,  and 
Holt  were  unflinching  Union  men,  and  did  all  in  their 
power  to  prevent  the  surrender  of  the  government  to  the 


LINCOLN  REACHES  WASHINGTON.  175 

conspirators.  They  most  efficiently  aided  General  Scott  in 
securing  the  peaceful  inauguration  of  Lincoln. 

The  absence  of  any  real  grievance  or  excuse  for  rebellion 
was  strongly  expressed  by  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  afterward 
Vice-President  of  the  Confederate  States,  in  a  speech  to  the 
Legislature  of  Georgia,  on  the  i4th  of  November,  1860.  He 
said  :  "  Mr.  Lincoln  can  do  nothing  unless  he  is  backed  by 
the  power  of  Congress.  The  House  of  Representatives  is 
largely  in  majority  against  him.  In  the  Senate  he  is  power* 
less.  There  will  be  a  majority  of  four  against  him."  *  *  * 
"  Many  of  us,"  said  he,  "  have  sworn  to  support  the  Consti 
tution.  Can  we,  for  the  mere  election  of  a  man  to  the  Presi 
dency,  and  that,  too,  in  accordance  with  the  forms  of  the 
Constitution,  make  a  point  of  resistance  without  becoming 
the  breakers  of  that  same  instrument  ?"  l 

Lincoln  remained  at  his  home,  a  deeply  anxious  yet  hope 
ful  spectator.  The  whole  country  was  eager  to  learn  his 
views,  and  ascertain  his  intentions.  He  was  reticent  as  to 
his  policy,  but  expressed  strong  hopes  of  being  able  to 
quiet  the  storm  and  restore  tranquillity.  To  an  inquiry  as 
to  what  kind  of  a  man  Lincoln  was,  an  intimate  friend 
replied  :  "  He  has  the  firmness  and  determination,  without 
the  temper,  of  Jackson."  Those  long  days,  from  Novem 
ber,  1860,  to  March,  1861,  were  perhaps  more  gloomy  than 
any  during  the  war.  Patriots  saw  conspirators  plotting,  and 
traitors  plundering  the  treasury,  dispersing  the  United  States 
soldiers,  sending  armed  ships  abroad,  stripping  arsenals  of 
arms,  and  with  them  arming  the  insurgents.  They  saw 
rebels  preparing  to  scuttle  the  ship  of  state,  and  the  very 
conspirators  were  the  chief  officers,  and  the  people  but  pass 
engers,  with  no  power  to  interfere.  The  people  watched, 
and  earnestly  prayed  that  the  "  ides  of  March  "  would  come 
speedily,  and  bring  Lincoln  to  the  helm. 

In  the  meanwhile,  efforts  at  pacification  and  conciliation 
were  made.  Committees  of  the  Senate  and  of  the  House 

1.  See  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  pp.  20-25,  for  Stephens'  speech 
in  full. 


I  76  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

were  raised  to  consider  measures  of  compromise.  But  all 
measures  of  this  character  were  voted  down  by  the  conspira 
tors  themselves.  They  wished  neither  compromise  nor 
guarantees,  but  separation.  A  so-called  "  Peace  Conven 
tion  "  met  at  Washington,  to  see  whether  any  terms  could 
induce  the  disaffected  to  abandon  their  purposes.  There 
were  many  who  believed  that  the  secession  movement  was 
all  threat  and  bluster,  made  to  secure  additional  guarantees 
for  slavery.  But  when  the  most  liberal  concessions  were 
made  in  the  interests  of  peace,  and  were  voted  down  by 
the  most  extreme  slaveholders  and  disunionists,  it  became 
evident  that  those  who  controlled  the  slave  power  had  delib 
erately  resolved  to  force  an  issue,  and  go  out  of  the 
Union. 

Charles  Francis  Adams,  from  the  House  committee  of 
thirty-three,  reported  "that  no  form  of  adjustment  will  be 
satisfactory  to  the  recusant  states,  which  does  not  incorpor 
ate  into  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  an  obligation 
to  protect  and  extend  slavery.  On  this  condition,  and  on 
this  alone,  will  they  consent  to  withdraw  their  opposition  to 
the  recognition  of  the  constitutional  election  of  the  Chief 
Magistrate.  Viewing  the  matter  in  this  light,  it  seems  unad- 
visable  to  attempt  to  proceed  a  step  further  in  the  way  of 
offering  unacceptable  propositions."  It  was  clear  the  con 
spirators  had  resolved  on  revolution. 

During  these  gloomy  days,  Lincoln  was  firm  and  deter 
mined.  On  the  question  of  slavery  extension,  he  was  as 
unyielding  as  adamant.  On  the  i3th  clay  of  December, 
1860,  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Washburne,  member  of  Con 
gress  from  Illinois,  as  follows: 

"  SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  Dec.  13,  1860. 

"  HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE — My  Dear  Sir:  Your  long  letter 
received.  Prevent  as  far  as  possible,  any  of  our  friends  from  demoraliz 
ing  themselves  and  our  cause,  by  entertaining  propositions  for  compro 
mise  of  any  sort  on  the  slavery  extension.  There  is  no  possible  com 
promise  upon  it,  but  which  puts  us  under  again,  and  leaves  us  all  our 
work  to  do  over  again.  Whether  it  be  a  Missouri  line,  or  Eli  Thayer's 


LINCOLN  REACHES  WASHINGTON.  177 

Popular  Sovereignty,  it  is  all  the  same.  Let  either  be  done,  and  imme 
diately  filibustering,  and  extending  slavery  recommences.  On  that  point 
hold  firm,  as  with  a  chain  of  steel.  Yours  as  ever, 

"  A.    LINCOLN." 

And  again,  on  the  2ist  of  December,  he  wrote  as  follows: 

"  Confidential" 

"SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  Dec.  21,  1860. 

"  HON.  E.  B.  WASHBURNE— My  Dear  Sir:  Last  night  I  received  your 
letter,  giving  an  account  of  your  interview  with  General  Scott,  and  for 
which  I  thank  you.  Please  present  my  respects  to  the  General,  and  tell 
him  confidentially,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  him  to  be  as  well  prepared  as  he 
can  to  either  hold,  or  retake,  the  forts,  as  the  case  may  require,  at  and 
after  the  inauguration.  Yours  as  ever, 

"  A.  LINCOLN."  * 

There  was  a  meeting  held  at  the  capital  on  the  night  of 
January  5th,  at  which  Jefferson  Davis,  Senators  Toombs, 
Iverson,  Slidell,  Benjamin,  Wigfall,  and  other  leading  con 
spirators  were  present.  They  resolved  in  secret  conclave  to 
precipitate  secession  and  disunion  as  soon  as  possible,  and 
at  the  same  time  resolved  that  senators  and  members  of  the 
House  should  remain  in  their  seats  at  the  Capitol  as  long  as 
possible,  to  watch  and  control  the  action  of  the  Executive, 
and  thwart  and  defeat  any  hostile  measures  proposed. 

In  accordance  with  concerted  plans,  some  of  the  sena 
tors  and  members,  as  the  states  they  represented  passed 
ordinances  of  secession,  retired  from  the  Senate  and  House 
of  Representatives.  Some  went  forth,  breathing  war  and 
vengeance,  others  expressing  deep  feeling  and  regret. 
Nearly  all  were  careful  to  draw  their  pay,  stationery,  and 
documents,  and  their  mileage  home  from  the  treasury  of  the 
government  which  they  went  forth  avowedly  to  overthrow. 
There  were  two  honorable  exceptions  among  the  representa 
tives  from  the  Gulf  states — Mr.  Bouligny,  representative 
from  New  Orleans,  and  Andrew  J.  Hamilton,  from  Texas. 
They  remained  true  to  the  Union.  On  the  evening  of  the 
3d  of  March,  1861,  when  the  Thirty-sixth  Congress  was 

1.    The  originals  of  these  letters  are  in  the  Washburne  MSS.  In  possession  of  the 
Chicago  Historical  Society. 
12 


I  78  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

about  to  expire,  Hamilton,  upon  bidding  farewell  to  his 
associates,  said:  "/  am  going  home  to  Texas,  and  I  shall 
stand  by  the  old  flag  as  long  as  there  is  a  shred  of  it  left  as  big 
as  my  hand" 

In  accordance  with  the  programme  of  the  conspirators, 
South  Carolina  had  adopted  the  ordinance  of  secession  on 
the  iyth  of  November,  1860;  Mississippi,  January  pth,  1861; 
Georgia,  January  iQth;  Florida,  January  icth;  Alabama, 
January  nth;  Louisiana,  January  25th,  and  Texas,  February 

I  St.1 

It  is  obvious  that  Lincoln  had  very  clear  and  positive 
convictions  of  his  duty.  The  Union  and  the  integrity,  of  the 
republic  must  be  preserved  at  all  hazards.  Whether  slavery 
would  survive  the  impending  struggle  who  could  foretell  ? 
He  feared  immediate  emancipation;  he  believed  that  gradual 
and  compensated  emancipation  would  be  better,  and  how 
earnestly  he  urged  this  we  shall  by  and  by  learn.  But  it 
would  seem  that  slavery  was  one  of  those  devils  that  could 
only  be  cast  out  by  "  fasting  and  prayer;"  by  bloodshed  and 
war.  Feeling  deeply  the  responsibility,  he  asked  earnestly 
and  humbly  the  guidance  of  Providence,  resolved  "  with 
malice  toward  none,  and  charity  for  all,"  to  do  his  duty  as 
God  should  give  him  to  see  his  duty,  and  with  this  resolu 
tion  to  go  forward. 

While  awaiting  the  course  of  events  at  Springfield,  the 
religious — perhaps  superstitious — character  of  Lincoln's 
mind  was  strongly  manifested.  Newton  Bateman,  a  highly 
respectable  and  Christian  gentleman,  was  Superintendent  of 
Public  Instruction  in  Illinois,  and  his  rooms  were  adjoining 
those  of  Lincoln  in  the  Capitol  at  Springfield.  They  were 
associates  and  friends,  and  often  conversed  together  in 
regard  to  the  threatening  condition  of  affairs.  There  was  a 
remarkable  interview  between  them  shortly  before  the 
November  election.  It  is  quoted  here  in  part,  as  detailed 

1.  McPherson'8  History  of  the  Rebellion,  pp.  2  and  3. 


LINCOLN  REACHES  WASHINGTON.  I  79 

by  Bateman,1  not  to  prove  Lincoln's  belief  or  disbelief  in 
any  dogma,  but  as  illustrating  the  tone  and  character  of  his 
mind.  He  said  to  Bateman:  "  I  know  there  is  a  God,  and 
he  hates  injustice  and  slavery.  I  see  the  storm  coming.  I 
know  that  his  hand  is  in  it.  If  he  has  a  place  and  work  for 
me — and  I  think  he  has — I  believe  I  am  ready.  I  am  noth 
ing,  but  truth  is  everything.  I  know  I  am  right  because 
I  know  that  liberty  is  right,  for  Christ  teaches  it,  and  Christ 
is  God.  I  have  told  them  that  a  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand,  and  Christ  and  reason  say  the  same,  and  they 
will  find  it  so." 

"  Douglas  don't  care  whether  slavery  is  voted  up  or 
down,  but  God  cares,  and  humanity  cares,  and  I  care  ; 
and  with  God's  help  I  shall  not  fail.  I  may  not  see 
the  end  ;  but  it  will  come,  and  I  shall  be  vindicated  ; 
and  these  men  will  find  that  they  have  not  read  their  Bible 
right." 

After  a  pause,  he  resumed.  "  Does  it  not  appear  strange 
that  men  can  ignore  the  moral  aspects  of  this  contest  ?  A 
revelation  could  not  make  it  plainer  to  me  that  slavery  or  the 
government  must  be  destroyed.  The  future  would  be  some 
thing  awful,  as  I  look  at  it,  but  for  this  rock  on  which  I 
stand  "  (alluding  to  the  Testament,  which  he  held  in  his 
hand). 

The  one  who  recounts  this  interview,  continues  thus  : 
"  He  referred  to  his  conviction  that  the  day  of  wrath  was  at 
hand,  and  that  he  was  to  be  an  actor  in  the  terrible  struggle 
which  would  issue  in  the  overthrow  of  slavery,  though  he 
might  not  live  to  see  the  end.  He  stated  his  belief  in  the 
duty  and  privilege,  and  efficacy  of  prayer."2 

These  passages  are  quoted,  not  to  show,  as  before  stated, 
his  belief  in  any  controverted  question  of  theology,  but  to 
illustrate  the  religious  character  of  his  mind,  his  presenti- 

1.  Holland's  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  237.  Herndon  says  this  interview  was  "colored." 
Bateman  wrote  to  the  author  that,  as  reported  by  Holland,  "  it  is  substantially  cor 
rect." 

2.  Holland's  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  238. 


ISO  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ment  of  the  part  he  was  to  act  in  the  great  drama,  and  that 
he  placed  his  dependence  for  success  on  Divine  assistance. 
Mr.  Bateman  may  have  made  mistakes  in  the  exact  words 
used  by  Lincoln,  but  that  the  substance  of  what  he  said  is 
given,  there  can  be  no  ^reasonable  doubt,  and  with  these 
statements,  his  speeches,  state-papers,  and  conduct,  from  this 
time  to  his  death,  are  perfectly  consistent. l 

Time  passed  on,  and  the  seceding  states  appointed  dele 
gates  to  meet  in  convention  at  Montgomery,  Alabama. 
They  met  on  the  4th  of  February,  and  organized  a  provis 
ional  government,  similar  in  many  respects  to  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States,  under  which  Jefferson  Davis 
was  made  President,  and  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Vice-Presi- 
dent. 

The  President  of  the  Confederate  States  was  a  man  of 
culture  and  large  experience  in  public  affairs.  Born  in  Ken 
tucky,  educated  at  West  Point,  at  the  expense  of  the  gov 
ernment  he  sought  to  overthrow,  he  entered  public  life  as 
the  follower  of  Calhoun.  He  was  of  an  imperious  temper, 

1.  To  his  friend,  Judge  Grant  Goodrich,  he  made  a  statement  in  regard  to  his 
dependence  on  God,  and  his  prayer,  for  assistance,  of  much  the  same  purport. 

In  this  connection  I  quote  a  paragraph  from  a  paper  written  by  John  Hay,  one  of 
his  private  secretaries,  and  published  in  Harper's  Monthly  Magazine,  for  July,  1865. 
•' It  was  just  after  my  election,  in  1860,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  when  the  news  had 
been  coming  in  thick  and  fast  all  day,  and  there  had  been  a  great  '  hurrah,  boys  ! '  so 
that  I  was  well  tired  out,  and  went  home  to  rest,  throwing  myself  upon  a  lounge  In 
my  chamber.  Opposite  to  where  I  lay,  was  a  bureau  with  a  swinging  glass  upon  it  ; 
and  looking  in  that  glass,  I  saw  myself  reflected  nearly  at  full  length  ;  but  my  face.  I 
noticed,  had  two  separate  and  distinct  images,  the  tip  of  the  nose  of  one  being  about 
three  inches  from  the  tip  of  the  other.  I  was  a  little  bothered,  perhaps  startled,  and 
got  up  and  looked  in  the  glass,  but  the  illusion  vanished.  On  lying  down  again,  I  saw 
it  the  second  time,  plainer,  if  possible,  than  before ;  and  then  I  noticed  that  one  of  the 
faces  was  a  little  paler — say  five  shades — than  the  other.  I  got  up,  and  the  thing 
melted  away,  and  I  went  off,  and,  in  the  excitement  of  the-  hour,  forgot  all  about  it — 
nearly,  but  not  quite — for  the  thing  would  once  in  a  while  come  up,  and  give  me  a 
pang,  as  though  something  uncomfortable  had  happened.  When  I  went  home,  I  told 
my  wife  about  It,  and  a  few  days  after,  I  tried  the  experiment  again,  when,  sure 
enough,  the  thing  came  back  again  ;  but  I  never  succeeded  in  bringing  the  ghost 
back  after  that,  though  I  once  tried  very  industriously  to  show  it  to  my  wife,  who 
was  worried  about  it  somewhat.  She  thought  it  was  a  sign  that  I  was  to  be  elected 
to  a  second  term  of  office,  and  that  the  paleness  of  one  of  the  faces  was  an  omen 
that  I  should  not  see  life  through  the  last  term." 

Mr.  Lincoln  regarded  this  as  an  optical  illusion.  Mrs.  Lincoln's  interpretation  was, 
a  strange  coincidence,  to  say  the  least,  when  compared  with  subsequent  events. 


LINCOLN  REACHES  WASHINGTON.  l8l 

and  of  a  most  intense  personal  ambition.  He  favored  the 
repudiation  by  the  state  of  Mississippi,  of  the  bonds  issued 
by  that  state,  and  thus  brought  deep  disgrace  upon  the 
American  character.  He  was  called  to  the  position  of  Sec 
retary  of  War,  by  President  Pierce,  and  in  that  position  he 
deliberately  conducted  the  affairs  of  the  war  department  with 
a  view  to  strengthen  the  slave  states,  preparatory  to  a  sepa 
ration,  and  even  with  a  view  to  war,  if  it  should  be  neces 
sary  to  secure  separation.  As  the  head  of  the  insurgents  at 
Montgomery,  he  was  guilty  of  opening  the  bloody  tragedy 
of  civil  war,  by  ordering  the  fire  upon  Fort  Sumter.  The 
character  of  the  man  may  be  inferred  from  the  language  he 
used  in  a  speech  on  his  way  from  Mississippi  to  Montgom 
ery,  to  assume  the  Presidency.  "We  will  carry  the  war," 
said  he,  "  where  it  is  easy  to  advance,  where  food  for  the 
sword  and  torch  awaits  our  armies  in  the  densely  populated 
cities."  Such  was  the  war  this  man  inaugurated  and  car 
ried  on  until  his  ignominious  capture.  How  different  this 
from  the  forbearing,  dignified,  Christian  spirit  of  magnanimity, 
which  ever  characterized  the  language  of  the  Chief  Magis 
trate  of  the  Union  during  the  war. 

The  Vice  President,  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  was  a  very 
different  character.  Intellectually  an  abler,  and  morally  a 
far  better  man,  he  had  vigorously  opposed  secession,  and 
never  heartily  approved  of  it.  No  man  made  sounder  and 
stronger  arguments  than  Stephens  against  secession.  In  the 
Georgia  convention  he  said: 

"  Pause,  I  entreat  you,  and  consider  for  a  moment  what  reasons  you 
can  give  that  will  even  satisfy  yourselves  in  calmer  moments — what 
reasons  you  can  give  to  your  fellow-sufferers  in  the  calamity  that  it  will 
bring  upon  us.  What  reasons  can  you  give  to  the  nations  of  the  earth 
to  justify  it?  They  will  be  calm  and  deliberate  judges  in  the  case;  and 
what  cause  or  one  overt  act  can  you  name  or  point  to,  on  which  to  rest 
the  plea  of  justification.  What  right  has  the  North  assailed?  What 
interest  of  the  South  has  been  invaded  ?  What  justice  has  been  denied  ? 
And  what  claim,  founded  in  justice  and  right,  has  been  withheld?  Can 
either  of  you  name  one  governmental  act  of  wrong,  deliberately  and 


I  82  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

purposely  done  by  the  government  of  Washington,  of  which  the  South 
has  a  right  to  complain."  *  *  * 

"  When  we  of  the  South  demanded  the  slave  trade,  or  the  importa 
tion  of  Africans  for  the  cultivation  of  our  lands,  did  they  not  yield  the 
right  for  twenty  years  ?  When  we  asked  a  three-fifth  representation  in 
Congress  for  our  slaves,  was  it  not  granted  ?  When  we  asked  and 
demanded  the  return  of  any  fugitive  from  justice,  or  the  recovery  of 
those  persons  owing  labor  or  allegiance,  was  it  not  incorporated  in  the 
Constitution,  and  again  ratified  and  strengthened  by  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law  of  1 850?"  *  *  * 

"  Again,  gentlemen,  look  at  another  act  ;  when  we  have  asked  that 
more  territory  should  be  added,  that  we  might  spread  the  institution  of 
slavery,  have  they  not  yielded  to  our  demands  in  giving  us  Louisiana. 
Florida,  and  Texas,  out  of  which  four  states  have  been  carved,  and  ample 
territory  for  four  more  to  be  added  in  due  time,  if  you  by  this  unwise 
and  impolitic  act  do  not  destroy  this  hope,  and  perhaps  by  it  lose  all,  and 
have  your  last  slave  wrenched  from  you,  by  stern  military  rule,  as  South 
America  and  Mexico  were,  or  by  the  vindictive  decree  of  a  universal 
emancipation,  which  may  reasonably  be  expected  to  follow?"  *  *  *! 

His  prophetic  declaration  that  "a  decree  of  universal 
emancipation "  might  be  reasonably  expected,  was  most 
remarkable  and  sagacious.  He  was  by  far  the  ablest 
of  the  Southern  leaders. 

On  the  i5th  of  February,  1861,  the  Houses  of  Congress 
met  in  joint  session  to  count  and  declare  the  electoral  vote. 
Fears  were  entertained  that,  by  some  fraud  or  violence,  the 
ceremony  might  be  interrupted,  or  not  performed  ;  but  the 
schemes  of  the  conspirators  were  not  yet  ripe  for  violence. 
In  accordance  with  the  forms  of  the  Constitution,  both 
Houses  of  Congress  met  at  12  M.,  in  the  gorgeous  hall 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  ;  the  Vice-President,  as 
President  of  the  Senate,  and  the  Speaker  of  the  House, 
sitting  side  by  side,  and  the  Vice-Prcsident  presiding. 

The  crowds  of  people  who  thronged  to  the  Capitol,  were 
impressed  with  the  peculiarly  solemn  character  of  the  pro 
ceedings.  The  deep  anxiety  of  the  public  mind  found 
expression  in  the  impressive  prayer  of  the  chaplain,  who 
invoked  the  blessing  and  protection  of  Almighty  God  upon 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  25. 


LINCOLN  REACHES  WASHINGTON.  183 

the  President  elect  ;  prayed  for  his  safe  arrival  at  the  capi 
tal  and  for  his  peaceful  inauguration,  and  that  threatened 
war  might  be  averted.  Vice-President  Breckenridge  and 
Senator  Douglas,  both  unsuccessful  candidates  for  the 
Presidency,  were  the  most  conspicuous  personages  present. 
On  the  nth  of  February,  with  his  family  and  some  per 
sonal  friends,  Lincoln  left  his  home  at  Springfield  for  Wash 
ington.  There  is  nothing  in  history  more  pathetic  than  the 
scene  when  he  bade  good-bye  to  his  old  friends  and  neigh 
bors.  Conscious  of  the  difficulties  and  dangers  before  him  ; 
difficulties  which  seemed  almost  insurmountable,  but  with  a 
sadness,  as  though  a  presentiment  that  he  should  return  no 
more  was  pressing  upon  him,  and  with  a  deep  religious 
trust,  which  was  very  characteristic,  he  paused,  as  he  stepped 
on  the  platform  of  the  railroad  carriage  which  was  to  bear 
him  away,  and  uttered  these  beautiful  and  touching  words  : 

"  My  Friends  :  No  one,  not  in  my  position,  can  realize  the  sadness 
I  feel  at  this  parting.  To  this  people  I  owe  all  that  I  am.  Here  I 
have  lived  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Here  my  children  were 
born,  and  here  one  of  them  lies  buried.  I  know  not  how  soon  I  shall 
•  see  you  again.  I  go  to  assume  a  task  more  difficult  than  that  which 
has  devolved  upon  any  other  man  since  the  days  of  Washington.  He 
never  would  have  succeeded  except  for  the  aid  of  Divine  Providence, 
upon  which  he  at  all  times  relied.  I  feel  that  I  cannot  succeed  without 
the  same  Divine  blessing  which  sustained  him  ;  and  on  the  same  Almighty 
Being  I  place  my  reliance  for  support.  And  I  hope  you,  my  friends,  will 
all  pray  that  I  may  receive  that  Divine  assistance,  without  which  I  can 
not  succeed,  but  with  which  success  is  certain.  Again,  I  bid  you  an 
affectionate  farewell." 

As  he  grasped  the  hard  hand  of  many  an  old  friend  and 
client,  and  bade  farewell  to  the  old  home  to  which  he  was 
never  to  return,  the  responses  came  from  many  old  neigh 
bors  :  "God  bless  and  keep  you."  "God  save  you  from 
all  traitors,"  his  friends  "  sorrowing  most  of  all,"  for  the 
fear  "that  they  should  see  his  face  no  more." 

The  profound  religious  feeling  which  pervades  this 
farewell  speech,  characterized  him  to  the  close  of  his  life. 
He  was  sustained  by  his  trust  in  God,  and  he  earnestly 


184  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

solicited  the  prayers  of  the  people.  From  the  time  of  his 
departure  from  Springfield,  until  his  remains  were  borne 
back  from  the  capital  of  the  republic  he  had  saved,  hal 
lowed  forever  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  deified  by  the 
superstitious  race  he  had  emancipated — he  was  the  object 
of  constant  and  earnest  prayer,  at  the  family  altar,  and  in  the 
places  of  public  worship.  From  the  time  when  he  started 
forth  upon  his  great  mission,  and  to  fulfill  his  destiny  and 
meet  his  martyrdom,  the  hearts  of  the  people  went  with  him. 

On  his  way  to  Washington,  he  passed  through  the  great 
states  of  Indiana,  Ohio,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Penn 
sylvania,  and  was  everywhere  received  with  demonstrations 
of  loyalty,  as  the  representative  of  the  national  govern 
ment.  He  addressed  the  people  at  the  capitals  of  these 
states,  and  at  many  of  their  chief  towns  and  cities. 

The  city  of  Washington  was  surrounded  by  slave  terri 
tory,  and  was  really  within  the  lines  of  the  insurgents.  Balti 
more  was  not  only  a  slaveholding  city,  but  nowhere  was 
the  spirit  of  rebellion  more  hot  and  ferocious  than  among  a 
large  class  of  its  people.  The  lower  classes,  the  material  of 
which  mobs  are  made,  were  reckless,  and  ready  for  any  out 
rage.  From  the  date  of  his  election  to  the  time  of  his  start 
for  Washington,  there  had  often  appeared  in  the  press  and 
elsewhere,  vulgar  threats  and  menaces  that  he  should  never 
be  inaugurated,  nor  reach  the  capital  alive.  Little  atten 
tion  was  paid  to  these  threats,  yet  some  of  the  President's 
personal  friends,  without  his  knowledge,  employed  a  detect 
ive,1  who  sent  agents  to  Baltimore  and  Washington  to  inves 
tigate.  Not  only  were  the  personal  friends  of  Lincoln  in 
Illinois  uneasy,  but  the  officers  of  the  railroads  from  Phila 
delphia,  Baltimore,  and  Washington,  became  apprehensive 
of  a  plot  to  destroy  the  roads,  ferry-boats,  and  bridges,  by 
which  communication  was  carried  on  between  Washington 
and  Philadelphia.  The  detectives  ascertained  the  existence 
of  a  plot  to  assassinate  the  President  elect,  as  he  passed 
through  Baltimore.2 

1.  Allan  PInkerton. 

2.  See  "The  Spy  of  the  Rebellion,"  by  Allan  PInkerton,  pp.  50-80. 


LINCOLN  REACHES  WASHINGTON.  I  85 

The  first  intelligence  of  this  conspiracy  was  communi 
cated  to  Lincoln  at  Philadelphia.  On  the  facts  being  laid 
before  him,  he  was  urged  to  take  the  train  that  night  (the 
2ist  of  February),  by  which  he  would  reach  Washington  the 
next  morning,  passing  through  Baltimore  earlier  than  the 
conspirators  expected,  and  thus  avoid  the  danger.  Having 
already  made  appointments  to  meet  the  citizens  of  Philadel 
phia  at,  and  raise  the  United  States  flag  over,  Independence 
Hall,  on  Washington's  birthday,  the  22nd,  and  also  to  meet 
the  Legislature  of  Pennsylvania  at  Harrisburg,  he  declined 
starting  for  Washington  that  night.  Finally  his  friends  per 
suaded  him  to  allow  the  detectives  and  the  officers  of  the 
railways  to  arrange  for  him  to  return  from  Harrisburg,  and, 
by  special  train,  to  go  to  Washington  the  night  following 
the  ceremonies  at  Harrisburg. 

On  the  22nd  of  February,  he  visited  old  Independence 
Hall,  where  the  Congress  of  the  revolution  had  adopted  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  This  declaration  of  princi 
ples  had  always  been  the  bible  of  his  political  faith.  He 
honestly  and  thoroughly  believed  in  it.  His  speech  on  that 
occasion  was  most  eloquent  and  impressive.  He  said  among 
other  things  : 

"All  the  political  sentiments  I  entertain  have  been  drawn,  so  far  as 
I  have  been  able  to  draw  them,  from  the  sentiments  which  originated  in, 
and  were  given  to  the  world  from,  this  hall.  I  never  had  a  feeling,  politi 
cally,  that  did  not  spring  from  the  sentiments  embodied  in  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence."  *  *  *  * 
"  It  was  not  the  mere  matter  of  the  separation  of  the  colonies  from  the 
mother-land,  but  that  sentiment  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
which  gave  liberty  not  alone  to  the  people  of  this  country,  but  I  hope  to 
the  world,  for  all  future  time.  It  was  that  which  gave  promise  that,  in 
due  time,  the  weight  would  be  lifted  from  the  shoulders  of  men.  This 
is  the  sentiment  embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Now, 
my  friends,  can  this  country  be  saved  upon  that  basis  ?  If  it  can,  I  will 
consider  myself  one  of  the  happiest  men  in  the  world,  if  I  can  help  to 
save  it.  If  it  cannot  be  saved  upon  that  principle,  it  will  be  truly  awful  ! 
•But  if  this  country  cannot  be  saved  without  giving  up  the  principle,  I 
was  about  to  say  :  '  /  would  rather  be  assassinated  on  the  spot,  than  sur 
render  it.'"  *  *  *  ***** 


1 86  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  I  have  said  nothing  but  what  I  am  willing  to  live  by,  and  if  it  be  the 
pleasure  of  Almighty  God,  to  die  by." 

The  allusion  to  the  assassination  was  not  accidental.  The 
subject  had  been  brought  to  his  attention  in  such  a  way  that, 
although  he  did  not  feel  that  there  was  serious  danger,  yet  he 
had  been  assured  positively,  by  a  detective,  whose  veracity 
his  friends  vouched  for,  that  a  secret  conspiracy  was  organ 
ized  at  a  neighboring  city,  to  take  his  life  on  his  way  to  the 
capital. 

He  went  to  Harrisburg,  according  to  arrangement,  met 
the  Legislature,  and  retired  to  his  room.  In  the  meanwhile, 
General  Scott  and  Mr.  Seward  had  learned,  through  other 
sources,  of  the  existence  of  the  plot  to  assassinate  him,  and 
had  despatched  Mr.  F.  W.  Seward,  a  son  of  Senator  Seward, 
to  apprise  him  of  the  danger.  Information  coming  to  him 
from  both  of  these  sources,  each  independent  of  the  other, 
induced  him  to  yield  to  the  wishes  of  his  friends,  and  antici 
pate  his  journey  to  Washington.  Besides,  there  had  reached 
him  from  Baltimore  no  committee,  either  of  the  municipal 
authorities  or  of  citizens,  to  tender  him  the  hospitalities,  and 
to  extend  to  him  the  courtesies  of  that  city,  as  had  been  done 
by  every  other  city  through  which  he  had  passed.  He  was 
persuaded  to  permit  the  detective  to  arrange  for  his  going  to 
Washington  that  night. 

The  telegraph  wires  to  Baltimore  were  cut,  Harrisburg 
was  isolated,  and,  taking  a  special  train,  he  reached  Philadel 
phia,  and  driving  to  the  Baltimore  depot,  found  the  Wash 
ington  train  waiting  his  arrival,  stepped  on  board,  and  passed 
on  without  interruption  through  Baltimore  to  the  national 
capital.  He  found,  on  his  arrival  at  Washington,  Senator 
Seward,  Mr.  Washburne,  and  other  friends  awaiting  him. 
Stepping  into  a  carriage,  he  was  taken  to  Willard's  Hotel, 
and  Washington  was  soon  startled  by  the  news  of  his 
arrival. 

He  afterwards  declared:  "  I  did  not  then,  nor  do  I  now 
believe  I  should  have  been  assassinated,  had  I  gone  through 
Baltimore  as  first  contemplated,  but  I  thought  it  wise  to  run 


LINCOLN  REACHES  WASHINGTON. 


i87 


no  risk  where  no  risk  was  necessary."  l  Such  arrangements 
were  made  by  General  Scott  and  others,  as  secured  his 
immediate  personal  safety.  His  family  and  personal  friends 
followed  and  joined  him,  according  to  the  programme  of  his 
journey. 

1.  See  Lossing's  Pictorial  History  of  the  Rebellion,  Vol.  1,  p.  279. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE. 

LINCOLN'S  INAUGURATION. — His  CABINET. — DOUGLAS'S  PROPHECY. — 
BUTLER  PREDICTS  END  OF  SLAVERY. — SOUTH  CAROLINA  THE 
PRODIGAL  SON. — DOUGLAS'S  RALLYING  CRY  FOR  THE  UNION. — His 
DEATH. — DIFFICULTIES  OF  THE  PRESIDENT. — REBELS  BEGIN  THE 
WAR.  —  UPRISING  OF  THE  PEOPLE.  —  DEATH  OF  ELLSWORTH. — 
GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  FRANCE  RECOGNIZE  THE  CONFEDERATES  AS 
BELLIGERENTS. — NEGROES  DECLARED  "CONTRABAND." 

MR.  LINCOLN  availed  himself  of  the  earliest  opportunity 
after  his  arrival  at  the  capital,  and  before  his  inauguration, 
to  express  his  kindly  feelings  to  the  people  of  Washington 
and  the  Southern  states.  On  the  2;th  of  February,  when 
waited  upon  by  the  Mayor  and  Common  Council,  he  assured 
them,  and  through  them  the  South,  that  he  had  no  disposi 
tion  to  treat  them  in  any  other  way  than  as  neighbors,  and 
that  he  had  no  disposition  to  withhold  from  them  any  con 
stitutional  right.  He  assured  the  people  that  they  should 
have  all  their  rights  under  the  Constitution.  "  Not  grudg 
ingly,  but  fully  and  fairly." 

On  the  4th  of  March,  1861,  he  was  inaugurated  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States.  An  inauguration  so  impressive 
and  solemn  had  not  occurred  since  that  of  Washington.  The 
ceremonies  took  place,  as  usual,  on  the  eastern  colonnade 
of  the  Capitol.  General  Scott  had  gathered  a  few  soldiers 
of  the  regular  army,  and  had  caused  to  be  organized  some 
militia,  to  preserve  peace,  order,  and  security. 

Thousands  of  Northern  voters  thronged  the  streets  of 
Washington,  only  a  very  few  of  them  conscious  of  the  vol 
cano  of  treason  and  murder,  thinly  concealed,  around  and 

188 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  189 

beneath  them.  The  public  offices  and  the  departments  were 
full  of  plotting  traitors.  Many  of  the  rebel  generals — Lee, 
Johnston,  Ewell,  Hill,  Stewart,  Magruder,  Pemberton,  and 
others,  held  commissions  under  the  government  they  were 
about  to  abandon  and  betray.  Rebel  spies  were  everywhere. 
The  people  of  Washington  were,  a  large  portion  of  them,  in 
sympathy  with  the  conspirators. 

None  who  witnessed  it,  will  ever  forget  the  scene  of 
that  inauguration.  There  was  the  magnificent  eastern  front 
of  the  Capitol,  looking  towards  the  statue  of  Washington;  and 
there  were  gathered  together  the  Senate  and  House  of  Rep 
resentatives,  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  Diplo 
matic  Corps,  the  high  officers  of  the  Army  and  the  Navy,  and, 
outside  of  the  guards,  a  vast  crowd  of  mingled  patriots  and 
traitors.  Men  looked  searchingly  into  the  eyes  of  every 
stranger,  to  discover  whether  he  were  a  traitor  or  a  friend. 
Standing  in  the  most  conspicuous  position,  amidst  scowl 
ing  traitors  with  murder  and  treason  in  their  hearts, 
Lincoln  was  perfectly  cool  and  self-possessed.  Near  him 
was  President  Buchanan,  conspicuous  with  his  white  neck 
tie,  bowed  as  with  the  consciousness  of  duties  unperformed; 
there  were  Chief  Justice  Taney  and  his  associates,  made 
notorious  by  the  Dred  Scott  decision  ;  there  was  Chase, 
with  his  fine  and  imposing  presence;  and  the  venerable  Scottr 
his  towering  form  still  unbroken  by  years;  the  ever  hopeful 
and  philosophic  statesman,  Seward  ;  the  scholarly  Sumner, 
and  blunt  Ben  Wade,  of  Ohio.  There  were  also  distin 
guished  governors  of  states,  and  throngs  of  eminent  men 
from  every  section  of  the  Union.  But  there  was  no  man 
more  observed  than  Douglas,  the  great  rival  of  Lincoln. 
He  had  been  most  marked  and  thoughtful  in  his  attentions 
to  the  President  elect;  and  now  his  small  but  sturdy  figure, 
in  striking  contrast  to  the  towering  form  of  Lincoln,  was 
conspicuous;  gracefully  extending  every  courtesy  to  his  suc 
cessful  competitor. i  His  bold  eye,  from  which  flashed  energy 

1.  The  author  Is  here  reminded  of  the  following  incident.      As  Mr.  Lincoln 
removed  his  hat,  before  commencing  the  reading  of  his  "Inaugural,"   from  the 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  determination,  was  eagerly  scanning  the  crowd,  not 
unconscious,  it  is  believed,  of  the  personal  danger  which 
encircled  the  President,  and  perfectly  ready  if  need  be  to 
share  it.  Lincoln's  calmness  arose  from  an  entire  absence 
of  self-consciousness;  he  was  too  fully  absorbed  in  the  gravity 
of  the  occasion  and  the  importance  of  the  events  around  and 
before  him,  to  think  of  himself. 

In  the  open  air,  and  with  a  voice  so  clear  and  distinct 
that  he  could  be  heard  by  thrice  ten  thousand  men,  he  read 
his  inaugural  address,  and  on  the  very  verge  of  civil  war,  he 
made  a  most  earnest  appeal  for  peace.  This  address  is  so 
important,  and  shows  so  clearly  the  causelessness  of  the 
rebellion,  that  no  apology  is  offered  for  the  following  quota 
tions  from  it: 

FELLOW  CITIZENS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES:  In  compliance  with  a 
custom  as  old  as  the  government  itself,  I  appear  before  you  to  address 
you  briefly,  and  to  take  in  your  presence  the  oath  prescribed  by  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States,  to  be  taken  by  the  President  "  before  he 
enters  upon  the  execution  of  his  office."  ***** 

Apprehension  seems  to  exist,  among  the  people  of  the  Southern 
states,  that  by  the  accession  of  a  republican  administration  their  property 
and  their  peace  and  personal  security  are  to  be  endangered.  There  has 
never  been  any  real  cause  for  such  apprehension.  Indeed,  the  most 
ample  evidence  to  the  contrary  has  all  the  while  existed  and  been  open  to 
their  inspection.  It  is  found  in  nearly  all  the  published  speeches  of  him 
who  now  addresses  you.  I  do  but  quote  from  one  of  those  speeches 
when  I  declare  that  "  I  have  no  purpose,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  inter 
fere  with  the  institution  of  slavery,  in  the  states  where  it  now  exists.  I 
believe  I  have  no  lawful  right  to  do  so,  and  I  have  no  inclination  to  do 
so."  Those  who  nominated  and  elected  me  did  so  with  a  full  knowledge 
that  I  had  made  this  and  many  similar  declarations,  and  have  never 
recanted  them.  *  *  *  * 

I  now  reiterate  those  sentiments,  and  in  so  doing  I  only  press  upon 
the  public  attention  the  most  conclusive  evidence  of  which  the  case  is 
susceptible,  that  the  property,  peace,  and  security  of  no  section  are  to  be 
in  anywise  endangered  by  the  now  incoming  administration.  *  *  * 

I  hold,  that  in  contemplation  of  universal  law,  and  of  the  Constitu- 

proxlmity  of  the  crowd  he  saw  nowhere  to  place  it,  and  Senator  Douglas,  by  his  side, 
seeing  this,  Instantly  extended  his  hand  and  held  the  President's  hat,  while  he  -was 
occupied  in  reading  the  address. 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE. 

tion,  the  Union  of  the  states  is  perpetual.     Perpetuity  is  implied,  if  not 
expressed,  in  the  fundamental  law  of  all  national  governments.       *      * 

I  therefore  consider  that,  in  view  of  the  Constitution  and  the  laws, 
the  Union  is  unbroken,  and  to  the  extent  of  my  ability  /  shall  take  care, 
as  the  Constitution  itself  expressly  enjoins  upon  me,  that  the  laws  of  the 
Union  be  faithfully  executed  in  all  the  states.  *  *  *  * 

As  Mr.  Lincoln  pronounced  the  foregoing  sentence,  with 
clear,  firm,  and  impressive  emphasis,  a  visible  sensation  ran 
through  the  vast  audience,  and  earnest,  sober,  but  hearty 
cheers  were  heard. 

In  doing  this  there  need  be  no  bloodshed  nor  violence:  and  there 
shall  be  none,  unless  it  be  forced  upon  the  national  authority.  The 
power  confided  to  me  will  be  used  to  hold,  and  occupy,  and  possess  the 
property  and  places  belonging  to  the  government,  and  to  collect  the 
duties  and  imposts;  but  beyond  what  may  be  necessary  for  these  objects 
there  will  be  no  invasion,  no  using  of  force  against  or  among  the  people 
anywhere. 

Physically  speaking,  we  cannot  separate.  We  cannot  remove  our 
respective  sections  from  each  other,  nor  build  an  impassable  wall  between 
them.  A  husband  and  wife  may  be  divorced,  and  go  out  of  the  presence, 
and  beyond  the  reach  of  each  other,  but  the  different  parts  of  our  country 
cannot  do  this.  ********* 

This  country,  with  its  institutions,  belongs  to  the  people  who  inhabit 
it.  Whenever  they  shall  grow  weary  of  the  existing  government,  they 
can  exercise  the  constitutional  right  of  amending,  or  their  revolutionary 
right  to  dismember  or  overthrow  it.  I  cannot  be  ignorant  of  the  fact 
that  many  worthy  and  patriotic  citizens  are  desirous  of  having  the  national 
Constitution  amended.  ******** 

My  countrymen,  one  and  all,  think  calmly  and  well  upon  this  whole 
subject.  Nothing  valuable  can  be  lost  by  taking  time.  If  there  be  an 
object  to  hurry  any  of  you  in  hot  haste  to  a  step  which  you  would  never 
take  deliberately,  that  object  will  be  frustrated  by  taking  time;  but  no 
good  object  can  be  frustrated  by  it.  Such  of  you  as  are  now  dissatisfied, 
still  have  the  old  Constitution  unimpaired,  and  on  the  sensitive  point,  the 
laws  of  your  own  framing  under  it.  The  new  administration  will  have 
no  immediate  power,  if  it  would,  to  change  either.  If  it  were  admitted 
that  you  who  are  dissatisfied  hold  the  right  side  in  the  dispute,  there  still 
is  no  single  good  reason  for  precipitate  action.  Intelligence,  patriotism, 
Christianity,  and  a  firm  reliance  on  Him,  who  has  never  yet  forsaken  this 
favored  land,  are  still  competent  to  adjust,  in  the  best  way,  all  our  pres 
ent  difficulties.  ********* 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

No  one  can  ever  forget  how  solemn  was  his  utterance  of 
the  following: 

In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and  not  in  mine, 
are  the  momentous  issues  of  civil  war.  The  government  will  not  assail 
you. 

You  can  have  no  conflict  without  being  yourselves  the  aggressors. 
You  have  no  oath  registered  in  heaven  to  destroy  the  government,  while 
I  have  the  most  solemn  one  to  "  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  it." 

I  am  loath  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends.  We  must  not 
be  enemies;  though  passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break,  our 
bonds  of  affection. 

The  mystic  chords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battle  field  and 
patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and  hearthstone  all  over  this  broad 
land,  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again  touched,  as  surely 
they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature. 

Alas !  such  appeals  were  received  by  the  parties  to  whom 
they  were  addressed,  with  jeers,  and  ribaldry,  and  all  the 
maddening  passions  which  riot  in  blood  and  war.  It  was  to 
force  only,  stern,  unflinching,  and  severe,  that  the  powers  and 
passions  of  treason  would  yield. 

With  reverent  look  and  impressive  emphasis,  he  repeated 
the  oath  to  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution  of 
his  country.  Douglas,  who  knew  from  his  personal  famil 
iarity  with  the  conspirators,  better  than  Lincoln,  the  dangers 
that  surrounded  and  were  before  him,  who  knew  the  conspi 
rators  and  their  plots,  with  patriotic  magnanimity  then 
grasped  the  hand  of  the  President,  gracefully  extended  his 
congratulations,  and  the  assurance  that  in  the  dark  future  he 
would  stand  by  him,  and  give  to  him  his  utmost  aid  in 
upholding  the  Constitution,  and  enforcing  the  laws  of  his. 
country.  Nobly  did  Douglas  redeem  that  pledge. 

Here  the  author  pauses  a  moment,  to  relate  a  most  sin 
gular  prophecy  in  regard  to  the  war,  uttered  by  Douglas, 
January  ist,  1861.  Senator  Douglas,  with  his  wife,  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  and  fascinating  women  in  America,  and  a 
relative  of  Mrs.  Madison,  occupied  one  of  the  houses  which 
formed  the  Minnesota  block. 


LINCOLN   IN   THE   WHITE   HOUSE.  193 

"On  New  Year's  Day,  1861,"  says  General  Stewart,  of 
New  York,  who  tells  the  story,  "  I  was  making  a  New  Year's 
call  on  Senator  Douglas;  after  some  conversation,  I  asked 
him : 

"'What  will  be  the  result,  Senator,  of  the  efforts  of  Jef 
ferson  Davis  and  his  associates,  to  divide  the  Union  ? ' 

"  We  were,"  says  Stewart,  "sitting  on  the  sofa  together, 
when  I  asked  the  question.  Douglas  rose,  walked  rapidly 
up  and  down  the  room  for  a  moment,  and  then  pausing,  he 
exclaimed,  with  deep  feeling  and  excitement  : 

"  '  The  cotton  states  are  making  an  effort  to  draw  in  the 
border  states  to  their  schemes  of  secession,  and  I  am  but  too 
fearful  they  will  succeed.  If  they  do,  there  will  be  the  most 
fearful  civil  war  the  world  has  ever  seen,  lasting  for  years/ 

"Pausing a  moment,  he  looked  like  one  inspired,  while  he 
proceeded  :  '  Virginia,  over  yonder  across  the  Potomac," 
pointing  towards  Arlington,  *  will  become  a  charnel-house  ; 
but  in  the  end  the  Union  will  triumph.  They  will  try,'  he 
continued,  'to  get  possession  of  this  capital,  to  give  them 
prestige  abroad,  but  in  that  effort  they  will  never  succeed ; 
the  North  will  rise  en  masse  to  defend  it.  But  Washington 
will  become  a  city  of  hospitals,  the  churches  will  be  used 
for  the  sick  and  wounded.  This  house,'  he  continued,  'the 
Minnesota  block,  will  be  devoted  to  that  purpose  before  the 
end  of  the  war.' 

"  Every  word  of  this  prediction  was  literally  fulfilled  ; 
nearly  all  the  churches  were  used  for  the  wounded,  and 
the  Minnesota  block,  and  the  very  room  in  which  this 
declaration  was  made,  became  the  'Douglas  Hospital.' " 

"  What  justification  is  there  for  all  this  ? "  asked  Stewart. 

"  There  is  no  justification,"  replied  Douglas.  "  I  will  go 
as  far  as  the  Constitution  will  permit  to  maintain  their  just 
rights.  But,"  said  he,  rising  to  his  feet,  and  raising  his  arm, 
"  if  the  Southern  states  attempt  to  secede,  I  am  in  favor  of 
their  having  just  so  many  slaves,  and  just  so  much  slave 
territory,  as  they  can  hold  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  and 
no  more." 

13 


194  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  President  having  been  inaugurated,  announced  his 
Cabinet  as  follows  :  William  H.  Seward,  Secretary  of  State  ; 
Simon  Cameron,  Secretary  of  War ;  Salmon  P.  Chase,  Sec 
retary  of  the  Treasury  ;  Gideon  Welles,  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  ;  Caleb  B.  Smith,  Secretary  of  the  Interior  ;  Mont 
gomery  Blair,  Postmaster  General  ;  and  Edward  Bates,  Attor 
ney  General. 

Seward,  Chase,  Cameron,  and  Bates  had  been  his  com 
petitors  for  the  nomination  at  the  Chicago  convention.  Dis 
regarding  the  remonstrances  of  some  of  his  friends,  who 
feared  that  such  a  Cabinet  would  lack  harmony,  and  that 
some  of  its  members  (as  the  fact  turned  out)  would  be  seek 
ing  the  Presidency,  he  is  said  to  have  replied  : 

"  No,  gentlemen,  the  times  are  too  grave  and  perilous  for 
ambitious  schemes,  and  personal  rivalries.  I  need  the  aid 
of  all  of  these  men.  They  enjoy  the  confidence  of  their  several 
states  and  sections,  and  they  will  strengthen  the  administra 
tion."  To  some  of  them  he  made  an  appeal,  saying  :  "It  will 
require  the  utmost  skill,  influence,  and  sagacity  of  all  of  us  to 
save  the  republic  ;  let  us  forget  ourselves,  and  join  hands 
like  brothers  to  save  the  republic.  If  we  succeed,  there 
will  be  glory  enough  for  all." 

Mr.  Seward,  the  Secretary  of  State,  had  been  the  Presi 
dent's  most  formidable  competitor  for  the  nomination.  He 
was  the  recognized  leader  of  the  republican  party  in  New 
York,  and  he  had  been  for  many  years  a  leading  statesman  in 
the  anti-slavery  ranks.  His  able  speeches  had  done  much 
to  create  and  consolidate  the  party  which  triumphed  in  1860. 
He  was  an  accomplished  scholar,  a  polished  gentleman, 
familiar  with  the  history  of  his  country,  and  its  foreign  pol 
icy  ;  a  clear  and  able  writer,  familiar  with  international  law, 
and  altogether  well  adapted  to  conduct  its  foreign  corre 
spondence.  He  was  hopeful  and  cheerful,  an  optimist,  and 
believed,  or  appeared  to  believe,  the  rebellion  would  be  short. 
He  was  a  shrewd  politician,  and  did  not  forget  his  friends  in 
the  dispensation  of  patronage.  * 

1.  In  the  early  part  of  Lincoln's  administration,  a  prominent  editor  of  a  German 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  195 

Salmon  P.  Chase,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  had  been 
also  a  prominent  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  He  was  a 
man  of  commanding  person,  fine  manly  presence,  dignified, 
sedate,  and  earnest.  His  mind  was  comprehensive,  logical, 
and  judicial.  He  was  an  earnest,  determined,  consistent, 
radical  abolitionist.  His  had  been  the  master  mind  at  the 
Buffalo  Convention  of  1848,  and  his  pen  had  framed  xthe 
Buffalo  platform.  By  his  writings,  speeches,  and  forensic 
arguments,  and  as  Governor  of  the  State  of  Ohio,  and  in  the 
United  States  Senate,  acting  with  the  accomplished  free-soil 
senator  from  Massachusetts,  Charles  Sumner,  he  had  con 
tributed  largely  to  the  formation  of  the  republican  party.  Up 
to  the  time  when  he  became  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  he 
had  developed  no  special  adaptation  to,  or  knowledge  of 
finance  ;  but  he  brought  to  the  duties  of  that  most  difficult 
position,  a  clear  judgment  and  sound  sense. 

Simon  Cameron  had  been  a  very  successful  Pennsylvania 
politician  ;  he  was  of  Scotch  descent,  as  his  name  indicates, 
with  inherent  Scotch  fire,  pluck,  energy,  and  perseverance. 
He  had  a  marked  Scotch  face,  a  keen  gray  eye,  was  tall  and 
commanding  in  form,  and  had  the  faculty  of  never  forgetting 
a  friend  or  an  enemy.  He  was  accused  of  being  unscrupu 
lous,  of  giving  good  offices  and  fat  contracts  to  his  friends. 
He  retired  after  a  short  time,  to  make  room  for  the  com 
bative,  rude,  fearless,  vigorous,  and  unflinching  Stanton.  A 
man  who  was  justly  said  to  have  "  organized  victory  " 

Montgomery  Blair,  the  Postmaster  General,  represented 
the  Blair  family,  one  of  large  political  influence,  and  long 
connected  with  national  affairs.  F.  P.  Blair,  senior,  as  the 
editor  of  the  Globe  during  General  Jackson's  administration, 

newspaper  published  in  the  West,  came  to  Washington  to  seek  an  appointment  abroad. 
With  the  member  of  Congress  from  his  district,  he  visited  the  "Executive  Mansion," 
and  his  wishes  were  stated.  The  editor  had  supported  Mr.  Seward  for  the  nomina 
tion  as  President.  Mr.  Lincoln  immediately  sent  a  messenger  to  the  Secretary  of 
State,  asking  him  to  come  to  the  "White  House.  Mr.  Seward  soon  arrived,  and  Lin 
coln,  after  a  cordial  greeting,  said  :  "Seward,  here  is  a  gentleman  (introducing  the 
editor)  who  had  the  good  sense  to  prefer  you  to  me  for  President.  He  wants  to  go 
abroad,  and  I  want  you  to  find  a  good  place  for  him."  This  Mr.  Seward  did,  and  the 
President  immediately  appointed  him. 


196  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

was  one  of  the  ablest  and  strongest  of  the  able  men  who  sur 
rounded  that  great  man.  He  had  been  associated  with,  and 
was  the  friend  of,  Benton,  Van  Buren,  and  Silas  Wright ;  he 
had  seen  those  friends  stricken  down  by  the  slave  power,  and 
he  had  learned  to  hate  and  distrust  the  oligarchy  of  slave 
holders,  and  his  counsels  and  advice,  and  his  able  pen,  had 
efficiently  aided  in  building  up  the  party  opposed  to  slavery. 
Montgomery  Blair  had  argued  against  the  Dred  Scott  decis 
ion.  F.  P.  Blair,  Jr.,  and  B.  Gratz  Brown,  had  led  the  anti- 
slavery  men  of  Missouri,  having,  after  a  most  gallant 
contest,  carried  the  city  of  St.  Louis,  and  the  former  was 
now  its  honored  representative  in  Congress. 

Edward  Bates,  the  Attorney  General,  was  a  fine,  digni 
fied,  scholarly,  gentlemanly  lawyer  of  the  old  school.  Gid 
eon  Welles  had  been  a  leading  editor  in  New  England, 
and  conducted  the  affairs  of  the  Navy  with  great  ability. 
Caleb  B.  Smith  was  a  prominent  politician  from  Indiana, 
and  had  been  a  colleague  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  Congress. 

On  the  evening  of  the  4th  of  March,  when  Mr.  Lincoln 
entered  the  White  House,  he  found  a  government  in  ruins. 
The  conspiracy  which  had  been  preparing  for  thirty  years, 
had  culminated.  Seven  states  had  passed  ordinances  of 
secession,  and  had  already  organized  a  rebel  government  at 
Montgomery.  The  leaders  in  Congress  and  out  of  it,  had 
fired  the  excitable  Southern  heart,  and  had  infused  into  the 
young  men  a  fiery,  headlong  zeal,  and  they  hurried  on,  with 
the  greatest  rapidity,  the  work  of  revolution. 

North  Carolina  still  hesitated.  The  people  of  that 
staunch  old  Union  state,  first  voted  down  a  call  for  a  con 
vention  by  a  vote  of  46,671  for,  to  47,333  against,  but  a 
subsequent  convention,  on  the  2ist  of  May,  passed  an  ordi 
nance  of  secession.  Nearly  all  the  Federal  forts,  arsenals, 
dock-yards,  custom  houses  and  post  offices,  within  the  terri 
tories  of  the  seceded  states,  had  been  seized,  and  were  held 
by  the  rebels.  Large  numbers  of  the  officers  of  the  army 
and  the  navy  deserted,  entering  the  rebel  service.  Among 
the  most  conspicuous  in  this  infamy,  was  General  David  E. 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  197 

Twiggs,  the  second  officer  in  rank  in  the  army  of  the  United 
States,  and  in  January,  1861,  commanding  the  Department 
of  Texas.  He  had  been  placed  there  by  Secretary  Floyd, 
because  he  was  known  to  be  in  the  conspiracy.  Secretary 
Holt,  on  the  iSth  of  January,  ordered  that  he  should  turn 
over  his  command  to  Colonel  Waite  ;  but  before  this  order 
reached  Colonel  Waite,  Twiggs  had  consummated  his  trea 
son  by  surrendering  to  the  rebel  Ben.  McCullough,  all  the 
national  forces  in  Texas,  numbering  twenty-five  hundred 
men,  and  a  large  amount  of  stores  and  munitions  of  war. 

There  was  little  or  no  struggle  in  the  Gulf  states,  except 
ing  in  Northern  Alabama,  against  the  wild  tornado  of  excite 
ment  in  favor  of  rebellion,  which  carried  everything  before 
it.  In  the  border  states,  in  Maryland,  Virginia,  North 
Carolina,  Tennessee,  and  Missouri,  there  was  a  contest,  and 
the  friends  of  the  Union  made  a  struggle  to  maintain  their 
position.  Ultimately  the  Union  triumphed  in  Maryland, 
Kentucky,  and  Missouri  ;  and  the  rebels  carried  the  state  of 
Tennessee  against  a  most  gallant  contest  on  the  part  of  the 
Union  men  of  East  Tennessee,  under  the  lead  of  Andrew 
Johnson,  Governor  Brownlow,  Horace  Maynard,  and  others. 
They  also  carried  Virginia,  which  seceded  April  lyth,  and 
North  Carolina,  which  adopted  secession  on  the  2oth  of 
May. 

Some  of  the  rebel  leaders  labored  under  the  delusion,  and 
they  most  industriously  inculcated  it  among  their  followers, 
that  there  would  be  no  war  ;  that  the  North  was  divided  ;  that 
the  Northern  people  would  not  fight,  and  that  if  there  was 
war,  a  large  part  of  them  would  oppose  coercion,  and  per 
haps  fight  on  the  side  of  the  rebellion.  1  There  was  in  the 
tone  of  a  portion  of  the  Northern  press,  and  in  the  speeches 
of  some  of  the  Northern  democrats,  much  to  encourage  this 

1.  Ex-President  Pierce,  In  a  letter  to  Jefferson  Davis,  dated  January  6th,  1860, 
among  other  things,  said  :  "If  through  the  madness  of  Northern  abolitionists,  that 
dire  calamity  (disruption  of  the  Union),  must  come,  the  fighting1  •will  not  be  along 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line  merely.  It  will  be  within  our  own  borders,  in  our  own  streets, 
between  the  two  classes  of  citizens  to  whom  I  have  referred.  Those  who  defy  law, 
and  scout  constitutional  obligation,  will,  if  we  ever  reach  the  arbitrament  of  arms, 
find  occupation  enough  at  home  ! "  Such  a  letter  is  sufficiently  significant. 


198  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

idea,  and  some  leading  republican  papers  were  at  least  ambig 
uous  on  the  subject.  There  was,  however,  one  prominent 
man  from  Massachusetts,  who  had  united  with  the  rebel 
leaders  in  the  support  of  Breckenridge,  and  who  sought  to 
dispel  this  idea  ;  this  was  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  who  came  to 
Washington,  to  know  of  his  old  political  associates  what  it 
meant  ?  "  It  means,"  said  his  Southern  friends,  "  separation, 
and  a  Southern  Confederacy.  We  will  have  our  independ 
ence,  and  establish  a  Southern  government,  with  no  discor 
dant  elements." 

"  Are  you  prepared  for  war? "said  Butler. 

"  Oh  !  there  will  be  no  war  ;  the  North  will  not  fight." 

"  The  North  will  fight.  The  North  will  send  the  last  man, 
and  expend  the  last  dollar  to  maintain  the  government,"  said 
Butler. 

"But,"  said  his  Southern  friends,  "the  North  can't  fight; 
we  have  too  many  allies  there." 

"  You  have  friends,"  said  Butler,  "  in  the  North,  who  will 
stand  by  you  so  long  as  you  fight  your  battles  in  the  Union  * 
but  the  moment  you  fire  on  the  flag,  the  Northern  people 
will  be  a  unit  against  you.  And,"  added  Butler,  "  you  may  be 
assured  if  war  comes,  slavery  ends."  Butler,  sagacious  and 
true,  became  satisfied  that  war  was  inevitable.  With  the 
boldness  and  directness  which  has  marked  his  character,  he 
went  to  Buchanan,  and  advised  the  arrest  of  the  commission 
ers  sent  by  the  seceding  states,  and  their  trial  for  treason. 
This  advice  it  was  as  characteristic  of  Butler  to  give,  as  it 
was  of  Buchanan  to  disregard. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  prejudice  against  Lincoln  at  the 
South,  the  following  incident  is  related.  Two  or  three  days 
before  the  inauguration,  on  the  4th  of  March,  1861,  and 
while  Lincoln  was  staying  at  Willard's  Hotel,  a  distinguished 
South  Carolina  lady — one  of  the  Howards — the  widow  of  a 
Northern  scholar — called  upon  him  out  of  curiosity.  She 
was  very  proud,  aristocratic,  and  quite  conscious  that  she 
had  in  her  veins  the  blood  of  "  all  the  Howards"  and  she 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  199 

was  curious  to  see  a  man  who  had  been  represented  to  her 
as  a  monster,  a  mixture  of  the  ape  and  the  tiger. 

She  was  shown  into  the  parlor  where  were  Mr.  Lincoln, 
and  Senators  Seward,  Hale,  Chase,  and  other  prominent 
members  of  Congress.  As  Mr.  Seward,  whom  she  knew, 
presented  her  to  the  President  elect,  she  hissed  in  his  ear  : 
"  I  am  a  South  Carolinian."  Instantly  reading  her  charac 
ter,  he  turned  and  addressed  her  with  the  greatest  courtesy, 
and  dignified  and  gentlemanly  politeness.  After  listening  a 
few  moments,  astonished  to  find  him  so  different  from  what 
he  had  been  described  to  her,  she  said  : 

"Why,  Mr.  Lincoln,  you  look,  act,  and  speak  like  a  kind, 
good-hearted,  generous  man." 

"  And  did  you  expect  to  meet  a  savage  ?  "  said  he. 

"  Certainly  I  did,  or  even  something  worse,"  replied  she, 
"  I  am  glad  I  have  met  you,"  she  continued,  "  and  now  the 
best  way  to  preserve  peace,  is  for  you  to  go  to  Charleston, 
and  show  the  people  what  you  are,  and  tell  them  you  have 
no  intention  of  injuring  them." 

Returning  home,  she  found  a  party  of  secessionists,  and 
on  entering  the  room  she  exclaimed  : 

"  I  have  seen  him  !     I  have  seen  him  !" 

"  Who  ?  "  they  inquired. 

"  That  terrible  monster,  Lincoln,  and  I  found  him  a  gen 
tleman,  and  I  am  going  to  his  first  levee  after  his  inaugura 
tion." 

At  his  first  reception,  this  tall  daughter  of  South  Caro 
lina,  dressing  herself  in  black  velvet,  with  two  long  white 
plumes  in  her  hair,  repaired  to  the  White  House.  She  was 
nearly  six  feet  high,  with  black  eyes,  and  black  hair,  and,  in 
her  velvet  and  white  feathers,  she  was  a  very  striking  and 
majestic  figure.  As  she  approached,  the  President  recog 
nized  her  immediately. 

"Here  I  am  again,"  said  she,  "that  South  Carolinian." 

"  I  am  glad  to  see  you,"  replied  he,  "  and  I  assure  you 
that  the  first  object  of  my  heart  is  to  preserve  peace,  and  I 


2OO  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

wish  that  not  only  you,  but  every  son  and  daughter  of  South 
Carolina  was  here,  that  I  might  tell  them  so." 

Mr.  Cameron,  Secretary  of  War,  came  up,  and  after  some 
remarks,  he  said  :  "  South  Carolina  (which  had  already 
seceded),  South  Carolina  is  the  prodigal  son." 

"Ah!  Mr.  Secretary,"  said  she,  "if  South  Carolina  is 
the  prodigal  son,  'Uncle  Sam,'  our  father,  ought  to  divide 
the  inheritance,  and  let  her  go  ;  but  they  say  you  are  going 
to  make  war  upon  us,  is  it  so  ?" 

"  Oh  !  come  back,"  said  he,  "  tell  South  Carolina  to  come 
back  now,  and  we  will  kill  the  fatted  calf." 

The  conduct  of  Douglas  towards  the  President  was  most 
magnanimous  and  patriotic.  They  who  had  been  so  long 
such  keen  and  earnest  competitors,  became  now  close  friends. 
Such  friendship  under  such  circumstances,  shows  that  there 
was  something  fine,  noble,  and  chivalrous  in  both.  Conscious 
of  the  peril  of  the  republic,  Douglas  did  all  in  his  power  to 
strengthen  the  man  who  had  beaten  him  in  the  race  for  the 
Presidency 

On  the  1 5th  of  April,  the  President  issued  his  proclama 
tion  calling  for  seventy-five  thousand  soldiers.  While  he  was 
considering  the  subject,  Douglas  called  and  expressed  his 
approval,  regretting  only  that  it  was  not  for  two  hundred 
thousand  instead  of  seventy-five  thousand,  and,  on  the  i8th 
of  April,  Douglas  wrote  the  following  dispatch,  and  placed 
it  in  the  hands  of  the  agents  of  the  associated  press,  to  be 
sent  throughout  the  country: 

"April  i8th,  1861,  Senator  Douglas  called  on  the  President,  and  had 
an  interesting  conversation  on  the  present  condition  of  the  country.  The 
substance  of  it  was,  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Douglas,  that  while  he  was 
unalterably  opposed  to  the  administration  in  all  its  political  issues,  he  was 
prepared  to  fully  sustain  the  President  in  the  exercise  of  all  his  Constitu 
tional  functions,  to  preserve  the  Union,  maintain  the  government,  and 
defend  the  Federal  capital.  A  firm  policy  and  prompt  action  was  neces 
sary.  The  capital  was  in  danger,  and  must  be  defended  at  all  hazards, 
and  at  any  expense  of  men  and  money.  He  spoke  of  the  present  and 
future  without  any  reference  to  the  past."  * 

1.  The  original  of  this  dispatch  in  Douglas's  handwriting  was  in  possession  of  the 
late  Hon.  George  Ashmun,  of  Massachusetts,  who  kindly  furnished  a  copy  to  the 
author. 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  2OI 

Douglas  took  this  means  to  inform  the  country  how  he 
stood,  and  to  exert  all  the  weight  of  his  influence  in  uniting 
the  people  to  sustain  the  Executive  in  his  efforts  to  suppress 
the  rebellion  by  force.  Not  only  did  he  issue  this  dispatch, 
but  he  started  for  the  Northwest,  and  everywhere,  by  his 
public  speeches  and  conversation,  sounded  the  alarm,  and 
rallied  the  people  to  support  the  Government.  On  the  23d 
of  April,  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  he  made  a  speech  for  the  Union, 
in  which  he  said  that  the  chairman  of  a  committee  of  seces 
sionists  had  been  instructed  to  tender  the  command  of  all 
the  forces  in  Virginia  to  General  Scott.  The  reply  of  the 
General,  said  Douglas,  was  this:  "  I  have  served  my  coun 
try  more  than  fifty  years,  and  so  long  as  I  live,  I  shall  stand 
by  it,  against  all  assailants,  even  though  my  native  state,  Vir 
ginia,  be  among  them."  l 

Douglas  made  a  speech  at  Wheeling,  Virginia,  of  the  same 
tenor,  and  passing  on  to  Springfield,  on  the  25th  of  April, 
spoke  to  the  Legislature  and  citizens  of  Illinois  at  the  capital. 
In  this  great  speech  he  said,  among  other  things: 

"  So  long  as  there  was  a  hope  of  a  peaceful  solution,  I  prayed  and 
implored  for  compromise.  I  have  spared  no  effort  for  a  peaceful  solu 
tion  of  these  troubles;  I  have  failed,  and  there  is  but  one  thing  to  do — to 
rally  under  the  flag.  *  *  *  The  South  has  no  cause  of  complaint. 
*  *  *  Shall  we  obey  the  laws,  or  adopt  the  Mexican  system  of  war 
on  every  election.  *  *  *  Forget  party — all — remember  only  your 
country.  *  *  *  The  shortest  road  to  peace  is  the  most  tremendous 
preparation  for  war.  *  *  *  It  is  with  a  sad  heart,  and  with  a  grief 
I  have  never  before  experienced,  that  I  have  to  contemplate  this  fearful 
struggle.  *  *  *  But  it  is  our  duty  to  protect  the  government  and 
the  flag  from  every  assailant,  be  he  who  he  may."  2 

1,  If  General  Lee,  who  had  been  chief-of -staff  to  General  Scott,  and  his  rebel 
associates,  had  followed  the  example  of  the  Commander  In  Chief,  how  much  blood 
shed  and  misery  might  have  been  prevented. 

2.  Governor  Shelby  M.  Cullom,  then  Speaker  of  the  House,  who  presided  at  the 
meeting,  says,  In  a  letter  to  the  author: 

"Douglas  spoke  with  great  earnestness  and  power.  Never  in  all  my  experience 
In  public  life,  before  or  since,  have  I  been  so  Impressed  by  a  speaker.  While  he  was 
speaking,  a  man  came  into  the  hall  bearing  the  American  flag.  Its  appearance 
caused  the  wildest  excitement,  and  the  great  assemblage  of  legislators  and  citizens 
was  wrought  up  to  the  highest  enthusiasm  of  patriotism  by  the  masterly  speech." 

Douglas  told  me  that  "  the  Union  was  In  terrible  peril,  and  he  had  come  home  to 
rouse  the  people  in  favor  of  the  Union." 


2O2  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

From  Springfield,  Douglas  came  to  his  home  in  Chicago, 
and,  at  the  great  "  Wigwam,"  repeated  his  appeal  for  the 
Union.  He  said  that  we  had  gone  to  the  very  extreme  to 
prevent  war,  and  the  return  for  all  our  efforts  has  been 
"  armies  marching  on  the  national  capital,"  a  movement  to 
blot  the  United  States  from  the  map  of  the  world.  "  The 
election  of  Lincoln  is  a  mere  pretext,"  the  secession  move 
ment  is  the  result  of  an  enormous  conspiracy,  existing  before 
the  election.  "  There  can  be  no  neutrals  in  this  war — only 
patriots  and  traitors."  Worn  with  excitement  and  fatigue,, 
he  went  to  the  Tremont  House  in  Chicago,  was  taken  ill, 
and  on  the  3rd  of  June  thereafter  died,  at  the  early  age  of 
forty-eight. 

Senator  McDougall,  of  California,  his  warm  personal 
and  political  friend,  said  in  the  Senate,  speaking  of  his  last 
speeches:  "  Before  I  left  home  I  heard  the  battle-cry  of 
Douglas  resounding  over  the  mountains  and  valleys  of  Cali 
fornia  and  far-off  Oregon.  His  words  have  communicated 
faith  and  strength  to  millions.  The  last  words  of  the  dead 
Douglas,  I  have  felt  to  be  stronger  than  the  words  of  multi 
tudes  of  living  men."  1 

The  name  of  Douglas  is  familiar  in  Scottish  history,  as 
it  is  in  Scottish  poetry  and  romance,  but  among  all  the  his 
toric  characters  who  have  borne  it,  from  him  of  "  the  bleed 
ing  heart  "  down,  few,  if  any,  have  surpassed  in  interest 
Stephen  Arnold  Douglas.8 

His  death  was  a  great  loss  to  the  country,  and  a  severe 
blow  to  the  President.  It  recalled  the  words  which  Mr. 
Van  Buren,  then  Senator  from  New  York,  had  spoken  on 
the  death  of  his  great  rival,  De  Witt  Clinton:  "  I,  who  while 
Clinton  lived,  never  envied  him  anything,  am  now  almost 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  July  9th,  1861. 

2,  It  fell  to  the  author  as  the  representative  In  Congress  from  Chicago,  the 
home  of  Douglas,  to  make  some  remarks  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  on  the 
occasion  of  his  death.     He   attempted  to  compare   Lincoln  and  Douglas,  and  to  do 
justice  to  both.    Neither  Mrs.  Lincoln  nor  Mrs.  Douglas  was  pleased  with  the  com 
parison.    Each  expressed  to  him   afterwards  her  astonishment;  the  one  that  any 
body  could  compare  Douglas  to  her  husband,  and  the  other,  that  any  one  could  think 
for  a  moment  of  comparing  Lincoln  to  Douglas! 


LINCOLIv7  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  203 

tempted  to  envy  him  his  grave  with  its  honors."1  These 
words  might  have  expressed  in  part  the  feelings  of  Lincoln 
on  the  death  of  Douglas. 

The  states  in  rebellion,  having  organized  a  hostile  gov 
ernment,  with  Jefferson  Davis  as  President,  and  Alexander 
H.  Stephens  as  Vice-President,  Lincoln  anxiously  surveyed 
the  political  horizon,  that  he  might  fully  understand  the 
difficulties  and  dangers  by  which  he  was  surrounded.  It 
should  be  remembered  that  although  his  electoral  vote  was 
large,  his  popular  vote  was  in  a  minority  of  nearly  one  mil 
lion.2  The  treasury  was  empty  ;  the  national  credit  failing 
and  broken  ;  the  nucleus  of  a  regular  army  scattered  and 
disarmed  ;  the  officers  who  had  not  deserted  were  strangers  ; 
the  old  democratic  party  which  had  ruled  for  most  of  the 
time  for  half  a  century,  was  largely  in  sympathy  with  the 
insurgents.  Lincoln's  own  party  was  made  up  of  discordant 
elements  ;  neither  he  nor  his  party  had  acquired  prestige;  nor 
had  the  party  yet  learned  to  have  confidence  in  its  leaders. 
He  had  to  create  an  army,  to  find  military  skill  and  leader 
ship  by  experience.  In  this  respect  the  rebels  had  great 
advantage.  They  had  been  for  years  preparing.  The 
Southern  people  were  the  more  used  to  firearms  and  to  vio 
lence.  They  had  in  the  Beginning  a  great  superiority  in 
their  military  leaders.  The  national  government  had  not  at 
the  beginning  any  officers  known  to  the  administration,  who 
were  equal  in  skill  to  Lee,  Stonewall  Jackson,  and  Johnston. 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  to  learn  by  costly  experience  who  could 
win  victories;  he  could  not  know  by  intuition,  and  in  the 
beginning  there  were  many  and  humiliating  reverses,  until 
merit  and  skill  could  be  developed  and  placed  at  the  head 
of  the  armies 

In  addition  to  all  this,  he  entered  upon  his  great  work  of 
restoring  the  integrity  of  the  Union,  without  sympathy  from 
any  of  the  great  powers  of  Western  Europe.  Those  of 

1.  See  address  of  William  Allen  Butler,  on  Martin  Van  Buren,  p.  39. 

2.  The  popular  vote  was:  For  Lincoln,  1.866,452;  for  Douglas,  1,375,157;  f  or  Breck- 
enridge,  847,953;  for  Bell,  590,631.  The  three  defeated  candidates  received  a  majority 
of  947,289  over  Lincoln. 


204  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

them  who  were  not  hostile,  manifested  a  cold  neutrality, 
exhibiting  towards  him  and  his  government  no  cordial  good 
will,  nor  extending  to  him  any  moral  aid. 

Let  us  trace  the  history  of  his  administration,  through 
these  days  of  trial  down  to  his  final  triumph.  His  first  and 
great  object  was  to  encourage  and  strengthen  the  Union 
sentiment  in  the  border  states.  If  he  could  hold  these 
states  in  the  Union,  the  contest  would  be  shortened.  There 
fore  he  had  delayed  his  call  for  troops  to  the  last  moment, 
in  the  hope  that  by  conciliation  he  might  prevent  the  seces 
sion  of  the  border  states. 

In  the  language  of  his  inaugural,  he  left  the  "  momentous 
issues  of  civil  war  "  in  the  hands  of  the  rebels.  The  war  was 
"forced  upon  the  national  authority."  On  the  pth  of  April, 
the  rebel  commissioners,  whom  the  government  refused  to 
receive  or  recognize,  left  Washington,  declaring  that  "  they 
accepted  the  gage  of  battle." *  The  Confederates  had  seized 
the  "arsenals,  forts,  custom-houses,  post-offices,  ships,  and 
materials  of  war  of  the  United  States,"  excepting  the  forts 
in  Charleston  Harbor,  and  were  constructing  fortifications 
and  placing  guns  in  position  to  attack  even  these.  While 
some  of  the  border  states  seemed  to  hesitate,  the  rebel  gov 
ernment  resolved,  for  the  purpose  of  arousing  sectional  feel 
ing  and  prejudice,  to  bring  on  at  once  a  conflict  of  arms. 

The  attack  on  Fort  Sumter  was  ordered  by  the  rebel 
authorities  on  the  nth  of  April,  Major  Robert  Anderson,  in 
command,  was  summoned  to  surrender  and  refused.  He 
had  a  feeble  garrison  of  a  handful  of  men,  and  was  encircled 
with  hostile  cannon.  A  peremptory  message  was  sent  to 
him,  that  unless  he  surrendered  within  an  hour,  the  rebel 
forts  would  open  upon  him.  He  still  refused,  and  the  bom 
bardment  began,  and  continued  for  thirty-six  hours,  when  he 
and  his  seventy  men  surrendered. 

The  fall  of  Sumter  and  the  President's  call  for  troops 
were  the  signals  for  the  rally  to  arms  throughout  the  loyal 
states.  Twenty  millions  of  people,  forgetting  party  divisions 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Ecbellion,  p.  110. 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  2O5 

and  all  past  differences,  rose  with  one  voice  of  patriotic 
enthusiam,  and  laid  their  fortunes  and  their  lives  upon  the 
altar  of  their  country.  The  proclamation  of  the  President 
calling  for  seventy-five  thousand  men  and  convening  an  extra 
session  of  Congress  to  meet  on  the  4th  of  July,  was  followed,  in 
every  free  state,  by  the  prompt  action  of  the  governors,  call 
ing  for  volunteers.  In  every  city,  town,  village,  and  neighbor 
hood,  the  people  rushed  to  arms,  and  almost  fought  for  the 
privilege  of  marching  to  the  defense  of  the  national  capital. 
Forty-eight  hours  had  not  passed  after  the  issue  of  the  proc 
lamation,  when  four  regiments  had  reported  to  Governor 
Andrew,  at  Boston,  ready  for  service.  On  the  iyth,  he 
commissioned  B.  F.  Butler,  of  Lowell,  as  their  commander. 

Governor  Sprague,  of  Rhode  Island,  calling  the  Legisla 
ture  of  that  state  together,  on  the  zyth  of  July,  tendered  to 
the  government  a  thousand  infantry,  and  a  battalion  of 
artillery,  and  placing  himself  at  the  head  of  his  troops,  started 
for  Washington. 

The  great  state  of  New  York,  whose  population  was 
nearly  four  millions,  through  her  Legislature,  and  the  action 
of  Governor  Morgan,  placed  her  immense  resources  in  the 
hands  of  the  national  Executive.  So  did  Pennsylvania, 
with  its  three  millions  of  people,  under  the  lead  of  Governor 
Curtin.  And  Pennsylvania  has  the  honor  of  having  fur 
nished  the  troops  that  first  arrived  for  the  defense  of  the 
capital,  reaching  there  on  the  i8th,  just  in  time  to  prevent  a 
seizure  of  the  nearly  defenceless  city. 

By  the  2oth  of  April,  although  the  quota  of  Ohio,  under 
the  President's  call,  was  only  thirteen  regiments,  seventy-one 
thousand  men  had  offered  their  services  through  Governor 
Dennison,  the  Executive  of  that  state.  It  was  the  same 
everywhere.  Half  a  million  of  men,  citizen  volunteers,  at 
this  call  sprang  to  arms,  and  begged  permission  to  fight  for 
their  country.  The  enthusiasm  pervaded  all  ranks  and 
classes.  Prayers  for  the  Union  and  the  integrity  of  the 
nation  were  heard  in  every  church  throughout  the  free 
states.  State  legislatures,  municipalities,  banks,  corpora- 


2O6  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

tions,  and  capitalists  everywhere  offered  their  money  to 
the  government,  and  subscribed  immense  sums  for  the  sup 
port  of  the  volunteers  and  their  families.  Independent 
military  organizations  poured  in  their  offers  of  service. 
Written  pledges  were  widely  circulated  and  signed,  offering 
to  the  government  the  lives  and  property  of  the  signers  to 
maintain  the  Union.  Great  crowds  marched  through  the 
principal  cities,  cheering  the  patriotic,  singing  national  airs, 
and  requiring  all  to  show,  from  their  residences  and  places 
of  business,  the  stars  and  stripes,  or  "  the  red,  white  and 
blue."  The  people,  through  the  press,  by  public  meetings, 
and  by  resolutions,  placed  their  property  and  lives  at  the 
disposal  of  the  government. 

Thus  at  this  gloom)-  period,  through  the  dark  clouds  of 
gathering  war,  uprose  the  mighty  voice  of  the  people  to  cheer 
the  heart  of  the  President.  Onward  it  came,  like  the  rush 
of  many  waters,  shouting  the  words  that  became  so  familiar 
during  the  war — 

"  We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham, 
Six  hundred  thousand  strong." 

The  government  was  embarrassed  by  the  number  of  men 
volunteering  for  its  service.  Hundreds  of  thousands  more 
were  offered  than  could  be  armed  or  received.  Senators, 
members  of  Congress,  and  other  prominent  men,  went  to 
Washington  to  beg  the  government  to  accept  the  services  of 
the  eager  regiments  everywhere  imploring  permission  to 
serve. 

The  volunteer  soldier  was  the  popular  idol.  He  was 
everywhere  welcome.  Fair  hands  wove  the  banners  which 
he  carried,  and  knit  the  socks  and  shirts  which  protected 
him  from  the  cold;  and  everywhere  they  lavished  upon  him 
luxuries  and  comforts  to  cheer  and  encourage  him.  Every 
one  scorned  to  take  pay  from  the  soldier.  Colonel  Stetson, 
proprietor  of  the  Astor  House  Hotel,  in  New  York,  replied 
to  General  Butler's  offer  to  pay:  "  The  Astor  House  makes 
no  charge  for  Massachusetts  soldiers."  And  while  the  best 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.'  vx       *  2OJ 

hotels  were  proud  to  entertain  the  soldier,  whether  private 
or  officer,  the  latch-string  of  the  cabin  and  farm-house  was 
never  drawn  in  upon  him  who  wore  the  national  blue.  Such 
was  the  universal  enthusiasm  of  the  people  for  their  country's 
defenders. 

The  feeling  of  fierce  indignation  towards  those  seeking 
to  destroy  the  government,  was  greatly  increased  by  the 
attack  of  a  mob  in  the  streets  of  Baltimore  upon  the  Sixth 
Regiment  of  Massachusetts  Volunteers,  while  passing  from 
one  depot  to  the  other  on  their  way  to  the  capital.  This 
attack,  on  the  igih  of  April,  in  which  several  soldiers  were 
shot,  roused  the  people  to  the  highest  pitch  of  excitement. 
The  secessionists  were  so  strong  in  that  state  as  to  induce 
the  Mayor  of  Baltimore,  and  Governor  Hicks,  a  Union  man, 
to  protest  against  troops  marching  over  the  soil  of  Maryland 
to  the  defense  of  the  national  capital.  The  rebels  burned 
the  bridges  on  the  railroads  leading  to  Washington,  and  for 
a  time  interrupted  the  passage  of  troops  through  Baltimore. 
The  Governor  so  far  humiliated  himself,  and  forgot  the  dig 
nity  of  his  state  and  nation,  as  to  suggest  that  the  differences 
between  the  government  and  its  rebellious  citizens  should  be 
referred  to  Lord  Lyons,  the  British  Minister.  The  Secre 
tary  of  State  fittingly  rebuked  this  unworthy  suggestion; 
alluding  to  an  incident  in  the  late  war  with  Great  Britain,  he 
reminded  the  Governor  of  Maryland  "  that  there  had  been  a 
time  when  a  general  of  the  American  Union,  with  forces 
designed  for  the  defense  of  its  capital,  was  not  unwelcome 
anywhere  in  Maryland;"  and  he  added,  "that  if  all  the 
other  nobler  sentiments  of  Maryland  had  been  obliterated, 
one,  at  least,  it  was  hoped  would  remain,  and  that  was,  that 
no  domestic  contention  should  be  referred  to  any  foreign 
arbitrament,  least  of  all  to  that  of  a  European  monarchy." 

While  such  was  the  universal  feeling  of  loyal  enthusiasm 
throughout  the  free  states,  in  the  border  slave  states  there 
was  division  and  fierce  conflict.  Governor  Magoffin,  of  Ken 
tucky,  in  reply  to  the  President's  call,  answered:  "I  say, 
emphatically,  Kentucky  will  furnish  no  troops  for  the  wicked 


2O8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

purpose  of  subduing  her  sister  Southern  states."  Governor 
Harris,  of  Tennessee,  said:  "  Tennessee  will  not  furnish  a 
man  for  coercion,  but  fifty  thousand  for  the  defense  of  our 
Southern  brothers."  Governor  Jackson,  of  Missouri,  refused, 
saying:  "  Not  one  man  will  Missouri  furnish  to  carry  on  such 
an  unholy  crusade;"  and  Virginia  not  only  refused,  through 
her  governor,  to  respond,  but  her  convention,  then  in  session, 
immediately  passed  an  ordinance  of  secession  by  a  vote  of 
eighty-eight  to  fifty-five. 

The  Northwest,  the  home  of  the  President,  and  the  home 
of  Douglas,  was,  if  possible,  more  emphatic,  it  could  scarcely 
be  more  unanimous,  than  other  sections  of  the  free  states, 
in  the  expression  of  its  determination  to  maintain  the  Union 
at  all  hazards,  and  at  any  cost.  The  people  of  the  vast 
country  between  the  Alleghanies  and  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
and  north  of  the  Ohio,  regarded  the  Mississippi  as  peculiarly 
their  river,  their  great  outlet  to  the  sea.  Proud  and  confident 
in  their  hardy  strength,  familiar  with  the  use  of  arms,  they 
never  at  any  time,  for  a  moment,  hesitated  in  their  deter 
mination  not  to  permit  the  erection  of  a  foreign  territory 
between  themselves  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Here  were  ten 
millions  of  the  most  energetic,  determined,  self-reliant 
people  on  earth;  and  the  idea  that  anybody  should  dare  to 
set  up  any  flag  other  than  their's  between  them  and  the 
ocean,  betrayed  an  audacity  they  would  never  tolerate. 
"  Our  great  river,"  exclaimed  Douglas,  indignantly,  "  has 
been  closed  to  the  commerce  of  the  Northwest."  The 
seceding  states,  conscious  of  the  strength  of  this  feeling, 
early  passed  a  law  providing  for  the  free  navigation  of  the 
Mississippi.  But  the  hardy  Western  pioneers  were  not  dis 
posed  to  accept  paper  guarantees  for  permission  to  "  possess, 
occupy,  and  enjoy"  their  own.  They  would  hold  the  Mis 
sissippi  with  their  rifles.  When  closed  upon  them,  they 
resolved  to  open  it.  They  immediately  seized  upon  the  im 
portant  strategic  point  of  Cairo,  and  from  Belmont  to 
Vicksburg  and  Fort  Hudson,  round  to  Lookout  Mountain, 
Chattanooga,  and  Atlanta,  they  never  ceased  to  press  the 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  209 

enemy,  until  the  great  central  artery  of  the  republic,  and 
all  its  vast  tributaries  from  its  source  to  its  mouth,  were  free; 
and  then,  marching  to  the  sea,  joined  their  gallant  brethren 
on  the  Atlantic  coast,  to  aid  in  the  complete  overthrow  of 
the  rebellion,  and  the  final  triumph  of  liberty  and  law. 

It  has  been  stated  that  the  people  of  the  border  states 
had  been  divided  in  sentiment,  and  it  was  very  doubtful  for 
a  time,  which  way  they  would  go  ;  but  the  attack  upon  Fort 
Sumter,  and  the  call  by  the  President  for  troops,  forced  the 
issue,  and  the  unscrupulous  leaders  were  able  to  carry  Vir 
ginia,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  and  Arkansas,  into  the 
Confederate  organization,  against  the  will  of  a  majority  of 
the  people  of  those  states.  Virginia,  the  leading  state  of 
the  Revolution,  the  one  which,  under  the  leadership  of 
Washington  and  Madison,  had  been  the  most  influential  in 
the  formation  of  the  national  government,  the  "  Old 
Dominion,"  as  she  was  called,  "the  mother  of  states  and  of 
statesmen,"  had  been  for  years  descending  from  her  high 
position.  Her  early  and  Revolutionary  history  had  been 
one  of  unequaled  brilliancy  ;  she  had  largely  shaped  the 
policy  of  the  nation,  and  furnished  its  leaders.  Her  early 
statesmen  were  anti-slavery  men,  and  if  she  had  relieved  her 
self  of  the  burden  of  slavery,  she  would  have  held  her  posi 
tion  as  the  leading  state  of  the  Union  ;  but,  with  this  heavy 
drag,  the  proud  old  commonwealth  had  seen  her  younger 
sisters  of  the  republic  rapidly  overtaking  and  passing  her  in 
the  race  of  progress,  and  the  elements  of  national  greatness. 
Indeed,  she  had  fallen  so  low,  that  her  principal  source  of 
wealth  was  from  the  men,  women,  and  children  she  raised 
and  sent  South  to  supply  the  slave  markets  of  the  Gulf 
states.  Her  leading  men  had  been  advocating  extreme 
state  rights  doctrines,  fatal  to  national  unity,  and  thus  sow 
ing  the  seeds  of  secession.  Her  politicians  had  threatened 
disunion,  again  and  again.  Still,  when  the  crisis  came,  a 
majority  of  her  people  were  true  ;  a  large  majority  of  their 
convention  was  opposed  to  secession,  and  when  afterwards, 
by  violence  and  fraud,  the  ordinance  was  passed,  the  people 
14 


210  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  the  Northwest,  the  mountain  region  of  Virginia,  resisted, 
and  determined  to  stand  by  the  Union.  This  portion  of 
the  state  maintained  its  position  with  fidelity  and  heroism, 
and  ultimately  established  the  state  of  West  Virginia. 

The  secession  of  Virginia  added  greatly  to  the  danger  of 
Washington,  and  a  bold  movement  upon  it  then,  in  its 
defenceless  condition,  would  have  been  successful.  Alex 
ander  H.  Stephens,  Vice-President  of  the  Confederacy, 
came  to  Richmond,  and  everywhere  raised  the  cry  of  "  on  to 
Washington  !  "  The  state  authorities  of  Virginia  did  not 
wait  the  ratification  of  the  secession  ordinance  by  the  peo 
ple,  to  whom  it  was  submitted  for  adoption  or  rejection,  but 
immediately  joined  the  Confederacy,  commenced  hostilities, 
and  organized  expeditions  for  the  capture  of  Harper's 
Ferry  and  the  Gosport  Navy-yard.  Senator  Mason  imme 
diately  issued  an  address  to  the  people,  declaring  that  those 
who  could  not  vote  for  a  separation  of  Virginia  from  the 
United  States,  <;  must  leave  the  state  /"  Submission,  banish 
ment,  or  death  was  proclaimed  to  all  Union  men  of  the  old 
commonwealth.  Nowhere,  except  in  West  Virginia,  and 
some  small  localities,  was  there  resistance  to  this  decree.  In 
the  Northwest,  the  mountain  men  rallied,  organized,  resolved 
to  stand  by  the  old  flag,  and  protect  themselves  under  its 
folds. 

The  secession  of  Virginia  gave  to  the  Confederates  a 
moral  and  physical  power,  which  imparted  to  the  conflict 
the  proportions  of  a  tremendous  civil  war.  She  placed  her 
self  as  a  barrier  between  her  weaker  sisters  and  the  Union, 
and  she  held  her  position  with  a  heroic  endurance  and  cour 
age,  worthy  of  a  better  cause  and  of  her  earlier  days. 
Indeed,  she  kept  the  Union  forces  at  bay  for  more  than  four 
long  years,  preserving  her  capital,  and  yielding  only,  when 
the  hardy  soldiers  of  the  North  had  marched  from  the  Ohio 
to  the  sea,  cutting  her  off  and  making  the  struggle  hopeless. 

North  Carolina  naturally  followed  Virginia,  and,  on  the 
2ist  of  May,  adopted  an  ordinance  of  secession.  Maryland, 
from  her  location  between  the  free  states  and  the  national 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  2  1 1 

capital,  occupied  a  position  of  the  utmost  importance. 
Could  she  be  induced  to  join  the  Confederates,  their  design 
of  seizing  the  national  capital  and  its  archives  would  be 
made  comparatively  easy.  Emissaries  from  the  conspirators 
were  busy  in  her  borders  during  the  winter  of  1861.  But 
while  there  were  many  rebel  sympathizers  and  traitors 
among  her  slaveholders,  and  while  many  leading  families 
gave  in  their  adhesion  to  the  conspiracy,  the  mass  of  the 
people  were  loyal.  The  governor  of  the  state,  Thomas  H. 
Hicks,  though  he  yielded  for  a  time  to  the  apparent  popu 
lar  feeling  in  favor  of  the  Confederates,  and  greatly  embar 
rassed  the  government  by  his  protests  against  troops 
marching  over  Maryland  soil  to  the  defense  of  the  capital, 
was,  at  heart  a  loyal  man  and  in  the  end  became  a  decided 
and  efficient  Union  leader.  He  refused,  against  induce 
ments  and  threats  of  personal  violence,  to  call  the  Legisla 
ture  of  the  state  together,  a  majority  of  whom  were  known 
to  be  secessionists,  and  who  would  have  passed  an  ordinance 
of  secession.  But  the  man  to  whom  the  people  of  Mary 
land  are  most  indebted,  who  was  most  influential  in  the 
maintenance  of  the  Union  cause  at  this  crisis,  and  who 
proved  the  benefactor  of  the  state  in  relieving  her  from  the 
curse  of  slavery,  was  the  bold,  eloquent,  and  talented  Henry 
Winter  Davis.  He  took  his  position  from  the  start,  for  the 
unconditional  maintenance  of  the  Union. 

The  officials  of  the  city  of  Baltimore  were,  most  of  them, 
secessionists,  and  its  chief  of  police  was  a  traitor,  and  was 
implicated  in  the  plot  to  assassinate  Mr.  Lincoln  on  his  way 
to  the  capital.  On  the  ipth  of  April,  a  mob  in  the  city  of 
Baltimore  had  attacked  the  Massachusetts  Sixth  Regiment, 
which  was  quietly  passing  through  to  the  defense  of  the  capi 
tal,  and  several  soldiers  and  citizens  were  killed  in  the  affray. 
The  bridges  connecting  the  railways  from  Pennsylvania  and 
New  York  with  Baltimore,  were  burned,  and  for  a  time, 
communication  by  railroad  was  interrupted.  General  B.  F. 
Butler,  leading  the  Massachusetts  troops,  together  with  the 
New  York  Seventh  Regiment,  was  compelled  to  go  around 


212  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

by  Annapolis  and  to  rebuild  the  railway  to  Washington. 
But  one  dark,  stormy  night,  General  Butler  marched  inta 
Baltimore,  encamped  on  Federal  Hill,  and  reopened  com 
munication  with  the  North.  The  Union  men  of  Maryland 
rallied  ;  the  leading  secessionists  fled  or  were  arrested,  and 
from  that  time,  Maryland  was  a  loyal  state,  giving  to  the 
Union  the  aid  of  her  moral  influence,  and  furnishing  many 
gallant  soldiers  to  fight  its  battles. 

What  course  would  be  taken  by  Missouri,  the  leading 
state  west  of  the  Mississippi  ?  With  a  population  exceeding 
a  million,  she  had  only  115,000  slaves.  Her  interests  were 
with  the  free  states,  yet  she  had  a  governor  in  direct  sym 
pathy  with  the  traitors,  as  were  the  majority  of  her  state  offi 
cers.  A  state  convention  was  called,  but  an  overwhelming^ 
majority  of  Union  men  had  been  elected.  The  truth  is, 
that  although  the  slave  power  had  succeeded  in  destroying 
the  political  power  of  her  great  senator,  Thomas  H.  Benton, 
yet  the  seeds  of  opposition  to  slavery  which  he  had  scat 
tered,  were  everywhere  springing  up  in  favor  of  union  and 
liberty.  The  city  of  St.  Louis,  the  commercial  metropolis 
of  the  state,  had  become  a  free-soil  city  ;  it  had  elected 
Francis  P.  Blair,  Jr.,  a  disciple  of  Benton,  to  Congress.  The 
large  German  population,  under  the  lead  of  Franz  Sigel 
and  others,  were  for  the  Union,  to  a  man. 

To  the  President's  call  for  troops,  the  rebel  Governor, 
Claiborne  F.  Jackson,  returned  an  insulting  refusal,  but  the 
people,  under  the  lead  of  Blair,  responded.  The  United 
States  Arsenal  at  St.  Louis  was,  at  this  time,  under  a  guard 
commanded  by  Captain  Nathaniel  Lyon,  one  of  the  boldest 
and  most  energetic  officers  of  the  army.  He,  in  connection 
with  Colonels  Blair,  Sigel,  and  others,  organized  volunteer 
regiments  in  St.  Louis,  preparing  for  a  conflict,  which  they 
early  saw  to  be  inevitable.  The  arms  of  the  St.  Louis  Arse 
nal  were,  during  the  night  of  the  25th  of  April,  under  the 
direction  of  Captains  Stokes  and  Lyon,  transferred  to  a 
steamer  and  taken  to  Alton,  Illinois,  for  safety,  and  were 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  213 

soon   placed   in   the   hands   of   the   volunteers    from   that 
state. 

On  the  i  Qth  of  April,  the  President  issued  a  proclama 
tion,  blockading  the  ports  of  the  Gulf  states,  and  on  the  27th 
this  was  extended  to  North  Carolina  and  Virginia,  both  of 
which  states  had  been  carried  into  the  vortex  of  revolution. 
On  the  3d  of  May,  the  President  called  into  the  service 
forty-two  thousand  volunteers  and  a  large  increase  of  the 
regular  army.  The  navy  was  thus  provided  for.  In  the 
meanwhile,  the  insurgents  had  been  active  and  enterprising. 
They  had  boldly  seized  Harper's  Ferry,  and  the  Gosport 
Navy-yard,  near  Norfolk,  Virginia.  Within  twenty-four 
hours  after  the  secession  ordinance  passed  the  Virginia  Con 
vention,  they  sent  forces  to  capture  those  places,  where  were 
situated  very  important  arsenals  of  arms  and  ordnance. 
Harper's  Ferry  had  long  been  a  national  armory,  and  com 
manded  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  one  of  the  most 
important  connections  of  the  capital  with  the  West.  It  was 
the  gate  of  the  beautiful  valley  of  the  Shenandoah,  and  of 
great  importance  as  a  military  post.  On  the  i8th  of  April, 
it  was  abandoned  by  its  small  garrison,  and  taken  possession 
of  by  the  insurgents.  At  about  the  same  time,  the  Gosport 
Navy-yard,  with  two  thousand  pieces  of  heavy  cannon  and 
various  material  of  war,  and  its  large  ships,  including  the 
Pennsylvania  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  guns,  and  the  Mer- 
rimac,  afterwards  famous  for  its  combat  with  the  Monitor, 
fell  into  their  hands.  Owing  to  imbecility,  or  treachery,  or 
both,  this  navy-yard,  with  its  vast  stores  and  property,  esti 
mated  to  be  worth  from  eight  to  ten  millions,  was  left 
exposed  to  seizure  and  destruction. 

Meanwhile,  troops  gathered  to  the  defense  of  the  national 
capital.  Among  others,  came  Colonel  Elmer  E.  Ellsworth, 
with  a  splendid  regiment  of  picked  men,  which  he  had 
raised  from  the  New  York  firemen.  On  the  evening  of  the 
23d  of  May,  the  Union  forces  crossed  the  Potomac  and 
took  possession  of  Arlington  Heights,  and  the  hills  over 
looking  Washington  and  Alexandria.  As  Colonel  Ellsworth 


214  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

was  returning  from  pulling  down  a  rebel  flag  from  the  Mar 
shal  House,  in  Alexandria,  he  was  instantly  killed  by  a  shot 
fired  by  the  keeper  of  the  hotel  over  which  the  obnoxious 
symbol  had  floated. 

This  young  man  had  accompanied  Mr.  Lincoln  from 
Illinois  to  Washington,  and  was  a  prote'ge"  of  the  President. 
He  had  introduced  the  Zouave  drill  into  the  United  States. 
He  was  among  the  first  martyrs  of  the  war,  and  his  death 
was  deeply  mourned  by  the  President.  His  body  was  taken  to 
the  Executive  Mansion,  and  his  funeral,  being  among  the  first 
of  those  who  died  in  defense  of  the  flag,  was  very  impres 
sive,  touching,  and  solemn.  A  gold  medal  was  taken  from 
his  body  after  his  death,  stained  with  his  heart's  blood,  and 
bearing  the  inscription:  "  non  solum  nobis  sed  pro  patria" 
"Not  for  ourselves  alone,  but  for  the  country." 

The  secession  of  Virginia  had  been  followed  by  the 
removal  of  the  rebel  government  to  Richmond.  Virginia^ 
North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  and  Arkansas  had  also  joined 
the  Confederacy.  At  last  freedom  and  slavery  confronted 
each  other,  face  to  face,  in  arms.  The  loyal  states  at  this, 
time,  had  a  population  of  22,046,472,  and  the  eleven  seced 
ing  states  had  a  population  of  9,103,333,  of  which  3,521,110 
were  slaves. 

The  rebel  government  having  been  established  and  its 
constitution  adopted,  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  its  Vice-Presi- 
dent,  boldly  and  frankly  declared:  "  Our  new  government 
is  founded,  *  *  its  foundations  are  laid,  its  corner-stone 
rests  on  the  great  truth  that  the  negro  is  not  equal  to  the 
white  man,  that  slavery,  subordination  to  the  superior  race  is  the 
natural  and  normal  condition} 

The  Confederate  government  being  based  on  slavery, 
and  the  fact  openly  avowed  that  slavery  was  its  corner-stone, 
how  would  it  be  received  by  Europe  ?  and  especially  by 
those  great  nations  England  and  France,  both  of  which  had 
so  often  reproached  the  United  States  for  the  existence  of 

1.  McPherson'B  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  103. 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  215 

slavery  ?  These  powers  and  the  world  were  now  to  be  spec 
tators  of  a  conflict  between  an  established  government,  per 
fectly  free,  on  one  side,  and  a  rebellion  organized  by  a  por 
tion  of  its  citizens  with  the  avowed  purpose  to  erect  upon  its 
ruins  a  government  based  upon,  and  formed  to  protect  and 
extend,  slavery.  Surely  there  was  every  reason  to  expect 
that  these  powers  would  rebuke  with  their  indignation  the 
suggestion  that  they  should  recognize — even  as  belligerents 
— a  government  with  such  a  basis,  and  would,  in  the  most 
emphatic  manner,  express  their  opposition  to  a  rebellion 
begun  and  carried  on,  because  the  authority  rebelled  against 
had  opposed  the  further  extension  of  slavery. 

But  far  from  doing  this,  Great  Britain  and  France,  act 
ing  in  concert,  even  before  the  representatives  of  President 
Lincoln's  administration  had  arrived  in  London  and  Paris, 
hastened  to  recognize  the  rebels  as  a  belligerent  power.  This 
eagerness  to  encourage  rebellion  ;  this  indecent  haste  to 
accord  belligerent  rights  to  an  insurgent  power,  based  on 
slavery,  was  justly  attributed  to  a  secret  hostility  on  the  part 
of  those  governments  towards  the  American  republic.  The 
United  States  stood  before  the  world  as  a  long  established 
government,  representing  order,  civilization,  and  freedom. 
The  Confederates,  as  a  disorganizing  rebellion,  with  no  griev 
ance,  except  opposition  to  the  extension  of  slavery,  with  no 
purpose,  except  to  extend  and  perpetuate  slavery;  and  yet  the 
powers  of  Western  Europe,  and  especially  the  aristocracy  of 
England,  made  haste  to  hail  them  as  belligerents,  and  extend 
to  them  moral  aid  and  sympathy. 

The  London  Times,  the  organ  of  the  English  aristoc 
racy,  exultingly  announced  :  "  The  great  republic  is  no  more  ! 
Democracy  is  a  rope  of  sand."  The  United  States,  it 
said,  lacked  the  cohesive  power  to  maintain  an  empire  of 
such  magnitude. 

At  the  moment  of  extremest  national  peril,  when  the  son 
of  the  Western  pioneer,  whom  the  people  had  chosen  for 
their  Chief  Magistrate,  was  confronted  by  the  dangers  which 
gathered  around  his  country  ;  when  his  great  and  honest  soul 


2l6  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

bowed  itself  to  God,  and  as  a  simple  child,  in  deepest  suppli 
cation  asked  his  guidance  and  blessing  ;  at  this  hour,  from 
no  crowned  head,  from  no  aristocratic  ruler  abroad,  came  any 
word  of  sympathy  ;  but  those  proud  rulers  could  coarsely  jest 
at  his  uncouth  figure,  his  uncourtly  bearing.  "  The  bubble  is 
burst,"  said  they.  But  the  Almighty  answered  that  prayer;  he 
joined  the  hearts  and  linked  the  hands  of  the  American  peo 
ple  and  their  President  together  ;  and  from  that  hour  to  his 
death,  the  needle  does  not  more  quickly  respond  to  the  polar 
influence,  than  did  Lincoln  to  the  highest  and  God-inspired 
impulses  of  a  great  people — a  people  capable  of  the  highest 
heroism  and  the  grandest  destiny. 

Very  soon  the  work-shops  of  England  and  Scotland  were 
set  in  motion  to  prepare  the  means  of  sweeping  American  com 
merce  from  the  ocean.  The  active  sympathy  of  the  masses  of 
European  populations,  and  the  cold  and  scarcely  concealed 
hostility  of  the  aristocratic  and  privileged  classes,  were  early 
and  constantly  manifested  during  the  entire  struggle.  This 
was,  perhaps,  not  unnatural.  In  addition  to  the  uneasiness 
which  the  rapid  growth  and  commanding  position  of  our 
country  had  created,  the  whole  world  instinctively  felt  that 
the  contest  was  between  freedom  and  slavery,  democracy 
and  aristocracy.  Could  a  government,  for  the  people  and  by 
the  people,  maintain  itself  through  this  fearful  crisis  ?  It 
was  quite  evident,  from  the  beginning,  that  the  privileged 
classes  abroad  were  more  than  willing  to  see  the  great  repub 
lic  broken  up,  to  see  it  pronounced  a  failure.  The  conspir 
ators  had  prepared  the  way,  as  far  as  possible,  by  their 
scarcely  veiled  intrigues,  for  the  recognition  of  the  Confed 
eracy.  The  rebels  had  a  positive,  vigorous  organization, 
with  agents  all  over  Europe,  many  of  them  in  the  diplomatic 
service  of  the  United  States.  They  had  created  a 
wide-spread  prejudice  against  Mr.  Lincoln,  representing 
him  as  merely  an  ignorant,  vulgar  "  rail-splitter  "  of  the 
prairies. 

Mr.  Faulkner,  of  Virginia,  represented  our  government 
in  France,  and  Mr.  Preston,  a  slaveholder  from  Kentucky,  in 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  217 

Spain,  both  secessionists.  It  was  not  long,  however,  before 
Mr.  Lincoln  impressed  the  leading  traits  of  his  character 
upon  our  foreign  policy.  Frankness,  straightforward  integ 
rity,  patient  forbearance,  and  unbroken  faith  in  the  triumph 
of  the  Union  and  liberty,  based  upon  his  trust  and  confi 
dence  in  the  Almighty  and  the  American  people,  character 
ized  his  foreign  policy.  This  policy  was  simple  and  thor 
oughly  American  ;  our  representatives  were  instructed  to  ask 
nothing  but  what  was  clearly  right,  to  avoid  difficulty,  and 
to  maintain  peace,  if  it  could  be  done  consistently  with 
national  honor.  The  record  of  the  diplomatic  correspond- 
-ence  of  the  United  States  during  the  critical  years  of  this 
administration,  is  one  of  which  Americans  may  justly  be 
proud.  Time  and  events  have  vindicated  the  statesmanship 
by  which  it  was  conducted.  Mr.  Seward,  in  his  instructions 
to  Mr.  Adams,  on  the  eve  of  his  departure  for  the  Court  of 
St.  James,  very  clearly  laid  down  the  principles  which  should 
govern  our  relations  with  foreign  nations.  Mr.  Adams  was 
instructed  not  to  listen  to  any  suggestion  of  compromise 
between  the  United  States  and  any  of  its  citizens,  under  for 
eign  auspices.  He  was  directed  firmly  to  announce  that  no 
foreign  government  could  recognize  the  rebels  as  an  inde 
pendent  power,  and  remain  the  friends  of  the  United  States. 
Recognition  was  war.  If  any  foreign  power  recognized, 
they  might  prepare  to  enter  into  an  alliance  also,  with  the 
enemies  of  the  republic.  He  was  instructed  to  represent 
the  whole  country,  and  should  he  be  asked  to  divide  that 
duty  with  the  representatives  of  the  Confederates,  he  was 
directed  to  return  home. 

The  action  of  the  insurgent  states  was  treated  as  a  rebel 
lion,  purely  domestic  in  its  character,  and  no  discussion  on 
the  subject  with  foreign  nations  would  be  tolerated.  Eng 
land  did  not  recognize  the  Confederates  as  a  nation.  She 
did  not  choose  war  ;  but  short  of  recognition,  alliance,  and 
war,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  she  could  have  done  more  to 
encourage  and  aid  the  insurgents  than  she  did. 

When   the   insurgents   raised  the    flag  of  rebellion,  the 


2l8  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

army  and  navy  were  scandalized,  and  the  nation  disgraced, 
by  large  numbers  of  the  officers  deserting  their  flag.  Nearly 
two  hundred  of  the  graduates  of  the  military  school  at 
West  Point  deserted,  and  joined  the  rebel  army. 

Yet,  among  the  officers  born  in  the  seceding  states,  were 
patriots  and  loyalists,  faithful  and  true,  and  scorning  all 
temptations  addressed  to  their  fidelity.  Among  others,  in 
civil  life,  Andrew  Johnson  and  Andrew  J.  Hamilton  have 
been  already  named,  and  in  the  military  and  naval  service 
were  Scott  and  Thomas,  Meade  and  Farragut,  and  many 
others.  The  names  of  Jefferson  Davis  and  of  his  military 
associates  grow  dark,  in  contrast  with  those  of  the  hero  of 
Lundy's  Lane,  of  the  victors  at  Gettysburg  and  Nashville, 
and  the  blunt,  honest,  and  chivalric  sailor,  who  so  gloriously 
triumphed  over  traitors  at  New  Orleans  and  Mobile.  Loyalty 
to  a  state  may  palliate,  it  cannot  justify  treachery  and 
treason.  Unless  all  moral  distinctions  are  to  cease,  all  good 
men  who  honor  Scott  and  George  H.  Thomas  must  condemn 
Twiggs.  Honoring  David  G.  Farragut,  they  must  condemn 
Raphael  Semmes. 

There  were,  at  the  time  of  the  breaking  out  of  the  rebel 
lion,  and  mostly  in  the  rebel  states,  nearly  four  millions  of 
slaves.  How  should  they  be  treated  ?  Should  the  govern 
ment,  by  offering  them  freedom,  make  them  its  active  friends, 
or  alienate  them  by  returning  them  to  slavery  ?  In  the  light 
of  to-day  it  is  difficult  to  understand  why  there  should  have 
been  hesitation  or  vacillation  in  this  matter.  The  transfer 
of  four  millions  of  people  in  the  rebel  states  to  the  Union 
side  would  have  been  decisive. 

In  the  beginning,  the  officers  of  the  army,  and  especially 
those  educated  at  West  Point,  were  slow  in  availing  them 
selves  of  the  aid  of  the  negroes.  Some  went  so  far  as  to 
return  to  the  rebels  their  runaway  slaves.  General  Butler 
did  much  towards  ending  this  policy.  In  May,  1861,  he  was 
in  command  at  Fortress  Monroe.  One  evening  three  negroes 
came  into  camp,  saying  that  "  they  had  fled  from  their  mas 
ter,  Colonel  Mallory,  who  was  about  to  set  them  to  work  on 


LINCOLN  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  219 

rebel  fortifications."  If  they  had  been  Colonel  Mallory's 
horses  or  mules,  there  could  be  no  question  as  to  what  should 
be  done  with  them.  But  so  strangely  deluded  were  the 
army  officers,  that  up  to  that  time  they  had  returned  fugitive 
slaves  to  rebel  masters,  to  work  and  fight  for  the  rebel  cause. 
Would  Butler  continue  in  this  folly  ? 

In  reply,  he  said  :  "  These  men  are  contraband  of  war." 
This  sentence,  expressing  an  obvious  truth,  was  more  import 
ant  than  a  battle  gained.  It  was  a  victory  in  the  direction 
of  emancipation,  upon  which  the  success  of  the  Union  cause 
was  ultimately  to  depend.  He,  of  course,  refused  to  sur 
render  them,  but  set  them  to  work  on  his  own  defences.  Up 
to  this  time  the  South  had  fought  to  maintain  slavery,  and 
the  government,  for  fear  of  offending  Kentucky  and  other 
border  states,  would  not  touch  it.  Strange  as  it  may  seem, 
a  rebel  officer  had  the  presumption,  under  a  flag  of  truce,  to 
demand  the  return  of  these  negroes  under  the  alleged  con 
stitutional  obligation  to  return  fugitive  slaves !  General 
Butler,  of  course,  refused,  saying:  "  I  shall  retain  the 
negroes  as  contraband  of  war  !  You  were  using  them  upon 
your  batteries;  it  is  merely  a  question  whether  they  shall  be 
used  for  or  against  us."  Other  generals  of  the  Union  army 
were  very  slow  in  recognizing  this  obvious  truth.  General 
McClellan,  on  the  26th  of  May,  issued  an  address  to  the 
people  of  his  military  district,  in  which  he  said:  "  Not  only 
will  we  abstain  from  all  interference  with  your  slaves,  but  we 
will,  on  the  contrary,  with  an  iron  hand  crush  any  attempt  at 
insurrection  on  their  part." 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

EXTRA    SESSION    OF   CONGRESS. 

PROMINENT  MEMBERS  OF  37TH  CONGRESS. —  PRESIDENT'S  MESSAGE. — 
VACANT  CHAIRS  OF  PROMINENT  REBELS. —  BAKER'S  REPLY  TO 
BRECKENRIDGE. — ANDREW  JOHNSON. — OWEN  LOVEJOY. — LAW  TO 
FREE  THE  SLAVES  OF  REBELS. — BULL  RUN. —  FREMONT'S  ORDER 
FREEING  SLAVES  MODIFIED  BY  THE  PRESIDENT. —  CAPTURE  AND 
RELEASE  OF  MASON  AND  SLIDELL. 

THE  Thirty-seventh  Congress  convened  in  an  extra  and 
called  session,  on  the  4th  of  July,  1861.  The  Thirty-sixth 
Congress  had  expired  on  the  4th  of  March,  without  making 
any  provision  to  meet  the  impending  dangers.  It  devolved 
upon  this,  the  Thirty-seventh,  to  sanction  what  the  President 
had  been  compelled  to  do,  and  to  clothe  him  with  extraordi 
nary  war  powers,  and  under  his  lead  to  call  into  the. field, 
and  to  provide  for,  those  vast  armies  whose  campaigns  were 
to  extend  over  half  the  continent.  It  was  for  this  Congress 
to  create  and  maintain  that  system  of  finance,  which  without 
the  aid  of  foreign  loans,  carried  the  republic  triumphantly 
through  the  most  stupendous  war  of  modern  times,  and 
which,  in  the  "  green-back  "  currency,  still  survives. 

Hannibal  Hamlin,  Vice-President,  presided  in  the  Senate; 
Galusha  A.  Grow,  of  Pennsylvania,  was  elected  Speaker,  and 
Emerson  Etheridge,  of  Tennessee,  Clerk  of  the  House. 
In  the  Senate,  only  twenty- three,  and  in  the  House 
twenty  -  two  states  were  represented.  No  representa 
tives  in  either  appeared  from  North  or  South  Caro 
lina,  Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana, 
Texas,  or  Arkansas.  No  senators,  and  only  two  members  of 


EXTRA  SESSION  OF  CONGRESS.  221 

the  House,  appeared  from  Virginia.  Andrew  Johnson,  from 
his  mountain  home  in  Tennessee,  "  faithful  among  the  faith 
less,"  alone  represented  Tennessee  in  the  Senate,  and  at  the 
second  session,  Horace  Maynard  and  Andrew  J.  Clements, 
appeared,  and  took  their  seats  in  the  House. 

Among  the  more  prominent  senators  of  New  England, 
and  men  who  had  already  secured  a  national  reputation,  were 
Fessenden  and  Morrill,  of  Maine;  Hale,  of  New  Hampshire; 
Sumner  and  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts;  Collamer  and  Foot,, 
of  Vermont,  and  Anthony,  of  Rhode  Island.  New  York 
was  represented  by  Preston  King  and  Ira  Harris. 

Mr.  Hale,  from  New  Hampshire,  had  been  the  leader  of 
the  old  "  liberty  party."  "  Solitary  and  alone  "  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  by  his  wit  and  humor,  his  readiness  and  ability, 
he  had  maintained  his  position  against  the  whole  senatorial 
delegation  of  the  slave  states,  and  their  numerous  allies  from 
the  free  states.  From  Vermont  came  the  dignified,  urbane, 
and  somewhat  formal  Solomon  Foot;  his  colleague,  Jacob 
Collamer,  was  a  gentleman  of  the  old  school,  who  had  been 
a  member  of  cabinets,  and  was  one  of  the  wisest  jurists  and 
statesmen  of  our  country.  Preston  King  had  been  the  friend 
and  confidant  of  Martin  Van  Buren,  Silas  Wright,  and 
Thomas  H.  Benton,  and  a  leader  at  the  Buffalo  convention; 
genial,  true,  and  devoted  to  the  principles  of  democracy. 
From  Pennsylvania  there  was  David  Wilmot,  who  while  a 
member  of  the  House,  had  introduced  the  "Wilmot  proviso,'" 
which  connects  his  name  forever  with  the  anti-slavery 
contest. 

The  senators  from  Ohio  were  John  Sherman,  a  brother 
of  General  Sherman,  and  late  a  distinguished  member  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  and  Chairman  of  the  Committee 
on  Finance,  and  Benjamin  Wade,  staunch,  rude,  earnest, 
and  true.  From  Illinois,  came  Lyman  Trumbull  and  Orville 
H.  Browning,  both  distinguished  lawyers  and  competitors  at 
the  bar  with  Douglas  and  Lincoln.  From  Iowa,  Senators 
Grimes  and  Harlan  ;  from  Wisconsin,  Doolittle  and  Howe  ; 
from  Michigan,  Bingham  and  Chandler ;  from  Indiana, 


222  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Jesse  D.  Bright  and  Henry  S.  Lane,  the  latter  of  whom  had 
presided  over  the  Philadelphia  convention  of  1856. 

The  House  of  Representatives  of  this  memorable  Con 
gress  was  composed  in  the  main  of  men  of  good  sense, 
respectable  abilities,  and  earnest  patriotism.  It  well  repre 
sented  the  intelligence,  integrity,  and  devotion  to  their 
country  of  the  American  people.  The  leader  of  the  House, 
as  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  was 
Thaddeus  Stevens,  of  Pennsylvania ;  although  a  man  of 
nearly  three  score  years  and  ten,  he  combined  with  large 
experience,  the  vigor  and  the  energy  of  thirty-five.  He  was 
the  most  sarcastic  and  witty,  as  well  as  the  most  eccentric 
member  of  the  House.  Respected,  and  somewhat  feared, 
alike  by  friend  and  foe,  few  desired  a  second  encounter  with 
him  in  the  forensic  war  of  debate.  If  he  did  not  demolish 
with  an  argument  or  crush  with  his  logic,  he  could  silence 
with  an  epigram  or  a  sarcasm.  Ready,  adroit,  and  saga 
cious,  as  well  as  bold  and  frank,  he  exerted  a  large  influence 
upon  legislation.  He  was  a  bitter  and  uncompromising 
party  chief,  and  better  adapted  to  lead  an  opposition,  than 
to  conduct  and  control  a  majority. 

In  the  New  York  delegation  was  Roscoe  Conkling, 
already  distinguished  for  his  eloquence  and  ability,  Charles 
B.  Sedgwick,  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs, 
and  E.  G.  Spaulding  and  Erastus  Corning,  leading  members 
of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means.  From  Ohio  were 
Pendleton,  Vallandigham,  and  Cox,  leaders  of  the  remnant 
of  the  democratic  party,  and  among  the  republicans  was 
John  A.  Bingham,  one  of  the  most  ready  and  effective 
debaters  on  the  floor.  Schuyler  Colfax,  from  Indiana,  a 
rising  member,  was  then  serving  his  fourth  term.  He  was 
industrious  and  genial,  with  great  tact  and  good  sense. 
Differing  from  his  political  opponents,  he  did  not  rouse 
their  anger  by  strong  statements,  or  harsh  language,  and  he 
was  popular  on  both  sides  of  the  House.  Illinois  was  rep 
resented  by  Washburne,  Lovejoy,  Kellogg,  and  Arnold, 
republicans ;  while  among  the  friends  of  Douglas  were 


EXTRA  SESSION  OF  CONGRESS.  223 

Richardson,  McClernand,  Fouke,  and  Logan,  and  these 
generally  supported  the  war  measures  of  the  administration. 
They  had  followed  the  lead  of  Douglas  ;  and  McClernand, 
Fouke,  and  Logan  entered  the  Union  army,  and,  especially 
Logan,  did  good  service  as  soldiers  during  the  war. 

But  many  vacant  chairs  in  the  House  and  the  Senate, 
indicated  the  extent  of  the  defection,  the  gravity  of  the  sit 
uation,  and  the  magnitude  of  the  impending  struggle.  The 
old  pro-slavery  leaders  were  absent,  some  in  the  rebel  gov 
ernment  set  up  at  Richmond,  and  others  in  the  field,  mar 
shalling  their  troops  in  arms  against  their  country.  The 
chair  of  the  late  senator,  now  the  rebel  President,  Jefferson 
Davis,  those  of  the  blustering  and  fiery  Bob  Toombs,  of  the 
accomplished  Hunter,  of  the  polished  and  learned  Jew  from 
Louisiana,  Judah  P.  Benjamin,  of  the  haughty  and  preten 
tious  Mason,  of  the  crafty  and  unscrupulous  Slidell,  and  of 
their  compeers,  who  had  been  accustomed  to  domineer  over 
the  Senate,  were  all  vacant. 

The  seat  of  Douglas,  the  ambitious  and  able  senator  from 
Illinois,  had  been  vacated,  not  by  treason,  but  by  death. 
Life-long  opponents,  recalling  his  last  patriotic  words  spoken 
at  Springfield,  and  in  Chicago,  gazed  sadly  on  that  unoccu 
pied  seat,  now  draped  in  black.  Well  had  it  been  for  John 
C.  Breckenridge,  lately  the  competitor  of  Douglas,  if  his 
chair  also  had  been  made  vacant  by  his  early  death.  But 
still  conspicuous  among  the  senators  was  the  late  Vice-Presi- 
dent,  now  the  senator  from  Kentucky.  His  fellow  traitors 
from  the  slave  states  had  all  gone.  He  alone  lingered,  shun 
ned,  and  distrusted  by  all  loyal  men,  and  treated  with  the 
most  freezing  and  formal  courtesy,  by  his  associates.  Dark 
and  lowering,  he  could  be  daily  seen  in  his  carnage — always 
alone — driving  to  the  Senate  chamber,  where  his  voice  and 
his  votes  were  always  given  to  thwart  the  war  measures  of 
the  government.  It  was  obvious  that  his  heart  was  with  his 
old  associates  at  Richmond.  As  soon  as  the  session  closed, 
he  threw  off  all  disguise,  and  joined  the  army  of  the  insur 
gents.  While  at  Washington,  gloomy,  and  it  may  be  sor- 


224  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

rowful,  he  said :  "  We  can  only  look  with  sadness  on  the 
melancholy  drama  that  is  being  enacted." 

Hostile  armies  were  gathering  and  confronting  each  other, 
and  from  the  dome  of  the  Capitol,  on  the  distant  hills  beyond 
Arlington,  and  on  towards  Fairfax  Court  House,  could  be 
seen  the  rebel  flag.  President  Lincoln,  in  his  message  to 
this  Congress,  calmly  reviewed  the  situation.  He  called 
attention  to  the  fact  that  at  his  inauguartion  the  functions 
of  the  Federal  Government  had  been  suspended  in  the  states 
of  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana, 
Texas,  and  Florida.  All  the  national  property  in  these  states 
had  been  appropriated  by  the  insurgents.  They  had  seized 
all  the  forts,  arsenals,  etc.,  excepting  those  on  the  Florida 
coast,  and  Fort  Sumter,  in  Charleston  harbor,  and  these 
were  then  in  a  state  of  siege  by  the  rebel  forces.  The 
national  arms  had  been  seized,  and  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
hostile  armies.  A  large  number  of  the  officers  of  the  United 
States  army  and  navy,  had  resigned  and  taken  up  arms 
against  their  government.  He  reviewed  the  facts  in  relation 
to  Fort  Sumter,  and  showed  that  by  the  attack  upon  it,  the 
insurgents  began  the  conflict  of  arms,  thus  forcing  upon  the 
country  immediate  dissolution,  or  war.  No  choice  remained 
but  to  call  into  action  the  war  powers  of  the  government \  and 
to  resist  the  force  employed  for  its  destruction,  by  force,  for 
its  preservation.  The  call  for  troops  was  made,  and  the 
response  was  most  gratifying.  Yet  no  slave  state,  except 
Delaware,  had  given  a  regiment  through  state  organization. 
He  then  reviewed  the  action  of  Virginia,  including  the  seiz 
ure  of  the  national  armory  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and  the  navy- 
yard  at  Gosport,  near  Norfolk.  The  people  of  Virginia 
had  permitted  the  insurrection  to  make  its  nest  within  her 
borders,  and  left  the  government  no  choice  but  to  deal  with 
it  where  it  found  it.  He  then  reviewed  the  action  of  the 
government,  the  calls  for  troops,  the  blockade  of  the  ports 
in  the  rebellious  states,  and  the  suspension  of  the  habeas 
corpus.  He  asked  Congress  to  confer  upon  him  the  power 
to  make  the  conflict  short  and  decisive.  He  asked  to  have 


EXTRA  SESSION  OF  CONGRESS.  225 

placed  at  his  disposal  four  hundred  thousand  men,  and  four 
hundred  millions  of  money.  Congress  responded  promptly 
to  the  message  of  the  President,  and  voted  five  hundred 
thousand  men,  and  five  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  to  sup 
press  the  rebellion. 

As  an  illustration  of  those  days  and  debates,  let  us 
recall  an  incident  which  occurred  in  the  Senate,  on  the  first 
of  August,  a  few  days  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run.  Senator 
Baker,  of  Oregon,  Lincoln's  old  friend  and  competitor,  and 
his  successor  in  Congress  from  the  Springfield  district,  was. 
making  a  brilliant  and  impassioned  reply  to  a  speech  of 
Breckenridge.  Charles  Sumner,  speaking  of  this,  and  allud 
ing  to  Breckenridge,  said  :  "  A  senator  with  treason  in  his 
heart,  if  not  on  his  lips,  has  just  taken  his  seat."  Baker,, 
who  had  entered  the  chamber  direct  from  his  camp,  rose  at 
once  to  reply.  l  His  rebuke  of  the  disloyal  sentiments  of 
Breckenridge  was  severe,  and  in  the  highest  degree  dra 
matic,  and  worthy  of  the  best  days  of  that  Roman  eloquence 
to  which  he  alluded. 

"  What,"  said  he,  "  would  the  senator  from  Kentucky  have?  These 
speeches  of  his,  sown  broadcast  over  the  land  ;  what  clear,  distinct  mean 
ing  have  they  ?  Are  they  not  intended  for  disorganization  in  our  very 
midst  ?  Are  they  not  intended  to  destroy  our  zeal  ?  Are  they  not 
intended  to  animate  our  enemies?  Sir,  are  they  not  words  of  brilliant, 
polished  treason ;  even  in  the  very  Capitol  of  the  republic  ?  What 
would  have  been  thought,  if,  in  another  Capitol,  in  another  republic,  in 
a  yet  more  martial  age,  a  senator  as  grave,  not  more  eloquent  or  dig 
nified  than  the  senator  from  Kentucky,  yet  with  the  Roman  purple  flow 
ing  over  his  shoulders,  had  risen  in  his  place,  surrounded  by  all  the  em 
blems  of  Roman  glory,  and  declared  that  the  cause  of  the  advancing  Han 
nibal  was  just,  and  that  Carthage  ought  to  be  dealt  with  in  terms  of  peace? 
What  would  have  been  thought,  if  after  the  battle  of  Cannae,  a  senator 
there  had  risen  in  his  place,  and  denounced  every  levy  of  the  Roman  peo 
ple,  every  expenditure  of  its  treasure,  and  every  appeal  to  the  old  recol 
lections,  and  the  old  glories  ?  " 

There  was  a  silence  so  profound  throughout  the  Senate 
and  galleries,  that  a  pinfall  could  have  been  heard;  while 
every  eye  was  fixed  upon  Breckenridge.  Fessenden  ex- 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  Dec.  11,  1861. 
15 


226  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

claimed,  in  deep,  low  tones:  "  He  would  have  been  hurled 
from  the  Tarpeian  rock."     Baker  then  resumed: 

"  Sir,  a  senator,  himself  learned  far  more  than  myself  in  such  lore 
(Mr.  Fessenden),  tells  me,  in  a  voice  I  am  glad  is  audible,  that  '  he 
would  have  been  hurled  from  the  Tarpeian  rock.'  It  is  a  grand  com 
mentary  upon  the  American  Constitution,  that  we  permit  these  words  of 
the  senator  from  Kentucky  to  be  uttered.  I  ask  the  senator  to  recol 
lect,  too,  what,  save  to  send  aid  and  comfort  to  the  enemy,  do  these  pre 
dictions  amount  to  ?  Every  word  thus  uttered  falls  as  a  note  of  inspira 
tion  upon  every  Confederate  ear." 

Baker  was  the  man,  brilliant  alike  as  an  orator  and  a 
soldier,  of  whom  Sumner  happily  said:  "  He  was  the  Prince 
Rupert  of  debate,  and  if  he  had  lived,  would  have  become 
the  Prince  Rupert  of  battle."  It  was  he  who,  on  the  prairies 
of  Illinois,  had  contested  the  palm  of  eloquence  with  Lincoln 
and  Douglas,  who  had  gone  to  California  and  pronounced 
the  memorable  oration  over  Senator  Broderick,  and  who, 
going  thence  to  Oregon,  came  to  Washington  as  senator 
from  that  state. 

Andrew  Johnson,  in  reply  to  Breckenridge,  on  the  2yth 
of  July,  quoted  the  remark:  "When  traitors  become  numer 
ous  enough,  treason  becomes  respectable.  Yet,"  said  he, 
"  God  willing,  whether  traitors  be  many  or  few,  as  I  have 
heretofore  waged  war  against  traitors  and  treason,  I  intend 
to  continue  to  the  end."  l  His  denunciation  of  Jefferson 
Davis  was  vehement  and  impassioned.  He  said:  "Davis, 
a  man  educated  and  nurtured  by  the  government,  who 
sucked  its  pap,  who  received  from  it  all  his  military  instruc 
tion,  a  man  who  got  all  his  distinction,  civil  and  military,  in 
the  service  of  the  government,  beneath  its  flag,  and  then 
without  cause,  without  being  deprived  of  a  single  right  or 
.privilege,  the  sword  he  unsheathed  in  vindication  of  the 
Jstars  and  stripes  in  a  foreign  land,  given  to  him  by  the  hand 
of  a  cherishing  mother,  he  stands  this  day  prepared  to 
plunge  into  her  bosom."  * 

Senator  Fessenden,Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Finance, 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  July  27,  1861,  p.  291. 

2.  See  Congressional  Globe 


EXTRA  SESSION  OF  CONGRESS.  227 

and  the  successor  of  Mr.  Chase  as  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury,  was  a  very  able  and  learned  New  England  senator. 
Ever  ready,  well  informed,  keen,  witty,  and  sarcastic,  as  a 
general  debater  he  had  no  superior. 

At  this  its  first  session,  Congress  inaugurated  that  series 
of  measures  against  slavery,  which,  in  connection  with  the 
action  of  the  President  and  the  victories  of  the  Union  sol 
diers,  resulted  in  its  destruction.  Among  its  members, 
known  distinctly  as  an  abolitionist,  was  Owen  Lovejoy;  a 
man,  as  has  been  stated,  of  powerful  frame,  strong  feelings, 
and  great  personal  magnetism  as  a  speaker.  In  February, 
1859,  during  his  first  term  in  Congress,  in  reply  to  the  furi 
ous  denunciations  of  the  slaveholders,  which  charged  among 
other  things,  that  he  was  a  "  nigger  stealer,"  he  indignantly 
and  defiantly  exclaimed  : 

"Yes,  I  do  assist  fugitives  to  escape.  Proclaim  it  upon  the  house 
tops;  write  it  upon  every  leaf  that  trembles  in  the  forest;  make  it  blaze 
from  the  sun  at  high  noon,  and  shine  forth  in  the  radiance  of  every  star 
that  bedecks  the  firmament  of  God.  Let  it  echo  through  all  the  arches  of 
heaven,  and  reverberate  and  bellow  through  all  the  deep  gorges  of  hell, 
where  slavecatchers  will  be  very  likely  to  hear  it.  Owen  Lovejoy  lives 
at  Princeton,  Illinois,  and  he  aids  every  fugitive  that  comes  to  his  door 
and  asks  it.  Thou  invisible  demon  of  slavery!  Dost  thoti  think  to  cross 
my  humble  threshold,  and  forbid  me  to  give  bread  to  the  hungry  and 
shelter  to  the  homeless?  I  bid  you  defiance  in  the  name  of  God."  1 

1.  At  the  May  term,  1842,  of  the  Bureau  County  Circuit  Court,  Richard  M.  Young, 
presiding ;  Xorman  H.  Purple,  Prosecuting  Attorney  pro  tern.;  the  grand  jury 
returned  a  "  true  bill"  against  Owen  Lovejoy  (then  lately  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel), 
for  that  "  a  certain  negro  girl  named  Agnes,  then  and  there  being  a  fugitive  slave, 
he,  the  said  Lovejoy,  knowing  her  to  be  such,  did  harbor,  feed,  secrete,  and 
clothe,"  contrary  to  the  statute,  etc.,  and  the  grand  jurors  did  further  present,  "  that 
the  said  Lovejoy,  a  certain  fugitive  slave  called  Nance,  did  harbor,  feed,  and  aid," 
contrary  to  the  statute,  etc.  At  the  October  term,  1842,  the  lion.  John  Dean  Caton, 
a  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  presiding,  the  case  came  up  for  trial,  on  the  plea  of 
not  guilty.  Judge  Purple,  and  B.  F.  Fridley,  State's  Attorney  for  the  people,  and 
James  H.  Collins,  and  Lovejoy  in  person,  for  the  defense.  The  trial  lasted  nearly  a 
week,  and  Lovejoy  and  Collins  fought  the  case  with  a  vigor  and  boldness  almost  with 
out  a  parallel.  The  prosecution  was  urged  by  the  enemies  of  Lovejoy,  with  an  energy 
and  vlndictiveness  with  which  Purple  and  Fridley  could  have  had  little  sympathy. 
When  the  case  was  called  for  trial,  a  strong  pro-slavery  man,  one  of  those  by  whom 
the  indictment  had  been  procured,  said  to  the  State's  Attorney  : 

4i  Fridley,  we  want  you  to  be  sure  and  convict  this  preacher,  and  send  him  to 
prison." 


228  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

On  the  6th  of  August,  a  bill  introduced  by  Senator 
Trumbull,  giving  freedom  to  all  slaves  used  by  the  rebels  in 
carrying  on  the  war  became  a  law.  It  was  vehemently 
opposed  by  Breckenridge  and  other  democratic  members,  as 
an  interference  with  the  rights  of  the  slaveholders,  but  those 
who  voted  for  the  bill,  justified  their  votes  on  the  ground 
that  in  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  and  other  engagements,  the 
rebels  used  their  negroes  and  slaves,  not  only  in  construct 
ing  fortifications,  but  in  battle  against  the  Union  forces, 
Burnett,  of  Kentucky,  declared  that  the  bill  would  result  in 
a  wholesale  emancipation  of  slaves  in  the  states  in  rebellion, 
and  some  one  replied:  "If  it  does,  so  much  the  better.'" 
Thaddeus  Stevens  then  said  :  "  I  warn  Southern  gentlemen, 
that  if  this  war  continues,  there  will  be  a  time  when  it  will 
be  declared  by  this  free  nation,  that  every  bondman  in  the 
South,  belonging  to  a  rebel  (recollect,  I  confine  it  to  them), 
shall  be  called  upon  to  aid  us  in  war  against  their  masters,, 
and  to  restore  the  Union." 

From  the  beginning  of  the  contest,  the  slaves  flocked  to 
the  Union  army,  as  to  a  haven  of  refuge.  They  believed 
freedom  was  to  be  found  within  its  picket  lines  and  under 
the  shelter  of  its  flag.  They  were  ready  to  act  as  guides,  to 
dig,  to  work,  to  fight  for  liberty.  The  Yankees,  as  their 
masters  called  the  Union  troops,  were  believed  by  them  to 
come  as  their  deliverers  from  long  and  cruel  bondage.  And 
yet,  almost  incredible  as  it  may  now  seem,  many  officers 
permitted  masters  and  agents  to  enter  their  lines,  and  carry 
away  by  force  these  fugitive  slaves.  Many  cruelties  and 
outrages  were  perpetrated  by  these  masters,  and  in  many 
instances,  the  colored  men  who  had  rendered  valuable  ser 
vice  to  the  Union  cause,  were  permitted  to  be  carried  from 
beneath  the  flag  of  the  Union  back  to  bondage. 

Lovejoy  was  most  indignant  at  this  stupid  and  inhuman 

"Prison!  Lovejoy  to  prison  !"  replied  Frldley, "  your  persecutions  will  be  a 
damned  sight  more  likely  to  send  him  to  Congress." 

Frldley  was  right.  Lovejoy  was  acquitted,  and  very  soon  after  elected  to  the 
State  Legislature,  and  then  to  Congress,  where,  as  all  know,  he  was  soon  heard  by  the 
whole  country. 


EXTRA  SESSION  OF  CONGRESS. 


treatment,  and  early  m  the  special  session,  introduced  a  reso 
lution  declaring  that  it  was  no  part  of  the  duty  of  the  sol 
diers  of  the  United  States,  to  capture  and  return  fugitive 
slaves.  This  passed  the  House  by  a  very  large  majority,  the 
vote  being  ninety-three  to  fifty-nine. 

While  the  President,  by  his  moderation,  was  seeking  to 
hold  the  border  states,  and  while  his  measures  were  severely 
criticized  by  many  extreme  abolitionists,  he  enjoyed,  to 
the  fullest  extent,  the  confidence  of  Lovejoy  and  other  radi 
cal  members  from  Illinois.  This  old  and  ultra  abolitionist 
perfectly  understood  and  appreciated  the  motives  of  the 
Executive.  On  the  death  of  Lovejoy,  in  1864,  Lincoln  said: 
"  Throughout  my  heavy  and  perplexing  responsibilities 
here  (at  Washington),  to  the  day  of  his  death,  it  would 
scarcely  wrong  any  other  to  say:  he  was  my  most  generous 
friend."1 

There  were,  in  the  border  states,  many  Union  men  who 
desired  to  maintain  the  Union,  and  who  wished  also,  that 
there  should  be  no  interference  with  slavery.  These,  with 
the  small  band  of  anti-slavery  men  in  Maryland,  Kentucky, 
.and  Missouri,  had  rendered  efficient  aid  in  preventing  those 
states  from  seceding.  Their  representative  man  in  Con 
gress  was  the  aged,  venerable,  and  eloquent  John  J.  Critten- 
den,  of  Kentucky.  He  had  been  the  confidential  friend  and 
colleague  of  Clay,  and  had  never  faltered  in  his  loyalty  to 
the  Union.  He  had  been  conspicuous  in  the  Thirty-sixth 
Congress,  in  attempting  to  bring  about  terms  of  compromise 
to  prevent  the  threatened  war. 

On  the  i5th  of  July,  on  motion  of  General  John  A. 
McClernand,  the  House,  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty-one  to  five,  adopted  a  resolution  pledging  itself  to  vote 
any  amount  of  money  and  any  number  of  men  which  might  be 
necessary,  to  ensure  a  speedy  and  effectual  suppression  of 
the  rebellion. 

On  the  22d  of  July,  1861,  Mr.  Crittenden  offered  the  fol 
lowing  resolution,  defining  the  object  of  the  war: 

1.  Letter  from  Lincoln  to  John  H.Bryant,  dated  May  30,  1864. 


230  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Resolved,  That  the  present  deplorable  civil  war  has  been  forced  upon 
the  country  by  the  disunionists  of  the  Southern  states,  now  in  revolt 
against  the  constitutional  government,  and  in  arms  around  the  capital; 
that,  in  this  national  emergency,  Congress,  banishing  all  feeling  of  mere 
passion  or  resentment,  will  recollect  only  its  duty  to  the  whole  country; 
that  this  war  is  not  waged,  upon  our  part,  in  any  spirit  of  oppression, 
nor  for  any  purpose  of  conquest,  or  subjugation,  nor  purpose  of  over 
throwing  or  interfering  with  the  rights  or  established  institutions  of  those 
states;  but  to  defend  and  maintain  the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution, 
and  to  preserve  the  Union,  with  all  the  dignity,  equality,  and  rights  of  the 
several  states  unimpaired;  that  as  soon  as  these  objects  are  accomplished, 
the  war  ought  to  cease. "  ' 

This  resolution  was  adopted  by  the  House,  there  being 
only  two  dissenting  votes.  It  served  to  allay  the  apprehen 
sion  of  the  border  states,  whose  sensitiveness  had  been  excited 
by  the  agents  and  abettors  of  the  rebellion. 

Congress,  after  long  debate,  sanctioned  the  acts  of  the 
President,  and,  as  has  been  stated,  voted  more  men  and 
money  than  he  had  in  his  message  called  for.  Among  the 
speeches  made  at  this  special  session,  one  of  the  ablest  was 
that  of  Senator  Baker,  whose  effective  reply  to  Breckenridge 
has  already  been  noticed.  His  speech  on  the  resolutions 
approving  the  acts  of  the  President,  was  distinguished  for  its 
eloquence,  its  boldness,  and  its  almost  prophetic  sagacity, 
He  said: 

"  I  am  one  of  those  who  believe  that  there  may  be  reverses.  I  am 
not  quite  confident  that  we  shall  overrun  the  Southern  states,  as  we  shall 
have  to  overrun  them,  without  severe  trials  of  our  courage  and  patience. 
I  believe  they  are  a  brave,  determined  people  filled  with  enthusiasm, 
false  in  its  purpose  as  I  think,  but  still  one  which  animates  almost  all 
classes  of  their  population.  But  however  that  may  be,  it  may  be  that 
instead  of  finding  within  a  year  loyal  states  sending  members  to  Con 
gress,  and  replacing  their  senators  upon  this  floor,  we  may  have  to  reduce 
them  to  the  condition  of  territories,  and  send  from  Massachusetts,  or 
from  Illinois,  governors  to  control  them."  2 

The  military  situation  was  substantially  as  follows:  The 
Union  troops  held  Fortress  Monroe  and  vicinity,  and  thus 
guarded  Baltimore  and  the  approaches  to  Washington;  a 

1.  See  Congressional  Globe,  July  22,  1861,  p.  223. 

2.  Congressional  Globe,  July  10th,  18C1,  pp.  44-45. 


EXTRA  SESSION  OF  CONGRESS.  231 

force  under  command  of  George  B.  McClellan,  was  driving 
the  rebels  out  of  West  Virginia.  The  Confederates,  under 
Beauregard,  confronted  the  Union  army  near  Washington, 
holding  a  position  along  Bull  Run  creek,  their  right  at 
Manassas,  and  left  at  Winchester,  under  Johnston.  The  peo 
ple  of  the  North,  confident,  sanguine,  and  impatient  of  delay, 
through  an  excited  press,  urged  an  immediate  attack  by  the 
Union  troops,  and  the  army,  under  General  McDowell, 
started  on  the  i6th  of  July,  and  on  the  2ist  attacked  the 
enemy.  The  attack  seemed  well  planned  and  was  at  first 
successful,  but  re-enforcements  under  the  rebel  General 
Johnston  reaching  the  field  at  the  crisis  of  the  battle,  Gen 
eral  Patterson,  of  the  Union  army,  neither  holding  Johnston 
in  check,  nor  coming  up  in  time,  the  Union  troops  were 
repulsed,  a  panic  seized  them,  and  they  fled  towards  Wash 
ington  in  great  confusion. 

The  disaster  of  Bull  Run  mortified  the  national  pride, 
but  aroused  also  the  national  spirit  and  courage.  The 
morning  following  the  defeat  witnessed  dispatches  flashing 
over  the  wires  to  every  part  of  the  North,  authorizing  the 
reception  of  the  eager  regiments  ready  to  enter  the  service 
and  retrieve  the  results  of  the  battle.  The  administration 
and  the  people,  immediately  upon  learning  of  this  defeat,  set 
themselves  vigorously  to  increase  and  reorganize  the  army. 
Grave  and  thoughtful  men  left  their  private  pursuits,  organ 
ized  regiments,  and  offered  them  to  the  government.  None 
were  now  refused.  The  popular  feeling  throughout  the 
loyal  states  again  rose  to  a  height  even  greater  than  it  did 
at  the  time  of  the  attack  upon  Fort  Sumter. 

Expeditions  were  organized  and  sent  to  the  South,  and 
Fort  Hatteras  was  surrendered  to  the  Union  troops  on  the 
28th  of  August.  On  the  3ist  of  October,  Port  Royal  came 
into  the  possession  of  the  Union  army.  The  rebels  were 
driven  out  of  West  Virginia,  and  General  George  B.  McClel 
lan,  who  had  been  in  command  there,  and  who  was  believed 
at  the  time  to  possess  military  ability  of  a  high  order,  was 
called  to  command  the  armies,  again  gathering  in  vast  num- 


232  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

bers  around  the  capital.  In  October,  General  Scott  retired 
on  account  of  age  and  infirmity,  and  General  McClellan  was 
appointed  to  the  command. 

When  the  war  began,  John  C.  Fremont  was  in  Paris.  He 
immediately  returned  home,  was  appointed  a  Major  General, 
and  given  command  of  the  Western  Department,  embracing 
Missouri  and  a  part  of  Kentucky.  On  the  3oth  of  August, 
he  issued  an  order  declaring  martial  law  throughout  Mis 
souri,  confiscating  the  property  of  rebels,  and  saying:  "Their 
slaves,  if  any  they  have,  are  hereby  declared  free  men."  l 

This  grave  act  was  done  without  consulting  the  Presi 
dent,  and  severely  embarrassed  the  Executive  in  the  efforts 
he  was  making  to  retain  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  other 
border  states,  in  the  Union.  It  was  received  with  the 
greatest  alarm  and  consternation  by  the  Union  men  of  these 
states.2  The  President,  on  the  2d  of  September,  wrote  to 
Fremont,  saying:  "There  is  great  danger.  *  *  The 
confiscation  of  property  and  liberating  slaves  will  alarm  our 
Southern  Union  friends,  and  turn  them  against  us,  perhaps 
ruin  our  fair  prospect  for  Kentucky."  3 

He  asked  Fremont  to  modify  his  order  so  as  to  conform 
to  the  act  of  Congress  lately  passed  on  that  subject.  General 
Fremont  replied,  excusing  and  justifying  his  acts,  and 
requesting  the  President  himself  to  modify  the  order,  which 
the  President  did,  issuing  an  order  himself,  altering  that  of 
Fremont  so  that  it  should  conform  to  and  not  "  transcend  '' 
the  act  of  Congress. 

The  reason  for  this  modification,  and  also  for  his  action 
with  reference  to  the  suggestions  of  the  Secretary  of  War, 
Cameron,  as  to  arming  the  negroes,  and  with  reference  to 
the  emancipation  order  of  General  David  Hunter,  appear  in 
a  letter  dated  April  4th,  1864,  in  which  he  says: 

"When,  early  in  the  war,  General  Fremont  attempted  military  eman 
cipation,  I  forbade  it,  because  I  did  not  then  think  it  an  indispensable 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  246. 

2.  See  Protest  of  Joseph  Holt  and  other  Union  men  of  Kentucky. 

3.  See  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  pp.  246-247. 


EXTRA   SESSION   OF   CONGRESS.  233 

necessity.  When,  a  little  later,  General  Cameron,  then  Secretary  of 
War,  suggested  the  arming  of  the  blacks,  I  objected,  because  I  did  not 
yet  think  it  an  indispensable  necessity.  When,  still  later,  General  Hunter 
attempted  military  emancipation,  I  again  forbade  it,  because  I  did  not  yet 
think  the  indispensable  necessity  had  come.  When,  in  March,  and  May, 
and  July,  1862,  I  made  earnest  and  successive  appeals  to  the  border 
states,  to  favor  compensated  emancipation,  I  believed  the  indispensable 
necessity  for  military  emancipation  and  arming  the  blacks  would  come, 
unless  averted  by  that  measure.  They  declined  the  proposition,  and  I 
was,  in  my  best  judgment,  driven  to  the  alternative  of  either  surrender 
ing  the  Union,  and  with  it,  the  Constitution,  or  of  laying  strong  hands 
upon  the  colored  element.  I  chose  the  latter.  In  choosing  it,  I  hoped  for 
greater  gain  than  loss,  but  of  this  I  was  not  entirely  confident.  More 
than  a  year  of  trial  now  shows  no  loss  by  it  in  our  foreign  relations, 
none  in  our  home  popular  sentiment,  none  in  our  white  military  force, 
no  loss  by  it  anyhow,  or  anywhere.  On  the  contrary,  it  shows  a  gain 
of  quite  a  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  soldiers,  seamen,  and  laborers. 
These  are  palpable  facts,  about  which,  as  facts,  there  can  be  no  cavilling. 
We  have  the  men;  and  we  could  not  have  had  them  without  the  measure." 1 

The  President  for  a  time  adhered  firmly,  and  against  the 
earnest  remonstrance  of  many  friends,  to  what  was  called 
the  border  state  policy. 

Military  preparations  on  a  large  scale  were  going  on. 
McClellan,  who  had,  on  the  resignation  of  General  Scott, 
been  appointed  commander  in  chief,  had  organized  an  im 
mense  army,  which  was  encamped  around  Washington.  On 
the  2ist  of  October  occurred  the  fight  at  Ball's  Bluff,  at 
which  Colonel  Baker,  the  senator  from  Oregon,  fell,  pierced 
by  a  volley  of  bullets.  In  September,  1861,  information  was 
communicated  to  the  government  that  the  Legislature  of 
Maryland  was  to  meet,  with  a  view  of  passing  an  act  of 
secession.  General  McClellan  was  directed  to  pre 
vent  this  by  the  arrest  of  the  members.  His  order  to  Gen 
eral  Banks,  dated  September  i2th,  1861,  says,  among  other 
things  :  "  When  they  meet  on  the  iyth,  you  will  please  have 
everything  prepared  to  arrest  the  whole  party,  and  be  sure 
that  none  escape."  *  "  If  successfully  carried 

out,  it  will  go  far  towards  breaking  the  backbone  of  the 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion  (letter  to  Col.  Hodges),  p.  336. 


234  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

rebellion."  *  "I  have  but  one  thing  to  impress 

upon  you,  the  absolute  necessity  of  secresy  and  success."  l 

This  act  has  been  censured  as  an  arbitrary  arrest.  How 
ever  arbitrary,  it  was  a  military  measure  of  great  importance, 
and  in  the  propriety  of  which  General  McClellan  fully  coin 
cided.  Governor  Hicks  said  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  :  "  I  believe  that  arrests,  and  arrests  alone,  saved  the 
state  of  Maryland  from  destruction.  I  approved  them  then, 
and  I  approve  them  now." 

On  the  8th  of  November,  1861,  Captain  Wilkes,  in  the 
San  Jacinto,  intercepted  the  Trent,  a  British  mail  steamer 
from  Havana,  with  Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell,  late  senators, 
and  then  rebel  agents,  on  their  way  to  represent  the  Confed 
eracy  at  the  courts  of  St.  James  and  St.  Cloud.  He  took 
them  prisoners,  and  bringing  them  to  the  United  States,  they 
were  confined  at  Fort  Warren,  in  Boston  harbor.  There 
were  few  acts  in  the  life  of  Lincoln  more  characteristic,  indi 
cating  a  higher  and  firmer  courage  and  independence, 
together  with  the  exercise  of  a  cool,  dispassionate  judgment^ 
than  the  release  of  Mason  and  Slidell.  No  act  of  the  Brit 
ish  Government,  since  the  days  of  the  Revolution,  ever  excited 
such  an  intense  feeling  of  hostility,  as  her  haughty  demand 
for  the  release  of  these  rebels.  The  people  had  already  been 
exasperated  by  her  hasty  recognition  of  the  Confederates  as 
belligerents,  and  the  seizure  by  Captain  Wilkes  of  these 
emissaries,  gratified  popular  passion  and  pride.  On  the 
first  day  of  the  session  of  Congress,  after  intelligence  of  the 
seizure  reached  Washington,  Lovejoy,  by  unanimous  consent, 
introduced  a  resolution  of  thanks  to  Captain  Wilkes,  which, 
with  blind  impetuosity,  was  rushed  through  under  the  call  of 
the  previous  question. 

The  position  of  the  President  was  rendered  still  more 
embarrassing  by  the  hasty  and  ill-considered  action  of  mem 
bers  of  his  Cabinet.  The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  wrote  to 
Wilkes  a  letter  of  congratulation  on  the  "  great  public 
service"  he  had  rendered  in  "  capturing  the  rebel  emissaries 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  153. 


EXTRA  SESSION  OF  CONGRESS.  235 

Mason  and  Slidell."  *  Stanton  cheered  and  applauded  the 
act.  The  Secretary  of  State  was  at  first  opposed  to  any 
concession  or  the  surrender  of  the  prisoners. 2  The  people 
were  ready  to  rush  "  pell  mell  "  into  a  war  with  England. 
The  Confederates  were  rejoicing  at  the  capture,  as  the 
means  of  bringing  the  English  navy  and  armies  to  their  aid. 
But  Lincoln,  cool,  sagacious,  and  far-seeing,  uninfluenced 
by  resentment,  with  courage  and  a  confidence  in  the  deliber 
ate  judgment  of  the  country  never  exceeded,  stepped  in 
front  of  an  exasperated  people,  told  them  to  pause  and  "  to 
forbear."  "We  fought  Great  Britain,"  said  he,  "for  doing 
just  what  Captain  Wilkes  has  done.  If  Great  Britain  pro 
tests  against  this  act  and  demands  their  release,  we  must 
adhere  to  our  principles  of  1812.  We  must  give  up  these 
prisoners.  Besides,"  said  he  significantly,  "one  war  at  a 
time."  It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  his  firmness  and 
courage  saved  the  republic  from  a  war  with  England. 

Had  the  President,  yielding  to  popular  clamor,  accepted 
the  challenge  of  Great  Britain  and  gone  to  war,  he  would 
have  done  exactly  what  the  rebels  desired,  and  would  have 
thus  made  Mason  and  Slidell  incomparably  more  useful 
to  the  Confederates  than  they  were  after  their  surrender, 
and  while  hanging  around  the  back  doors  of  the  Courts 
to  which  they  were  sent,  but  at  which  they  were  never 
received.  No  one  can  calculate  the  results  which  would 
have  followed  upon  a  refusal  to  surrender  these  men.  The 
sober  second  thought  of  the  people  recognized  the  wise 
statesmanship  of  the  President.  The  Secretary  of  State, 
with  his  facile  pen,  made  an  able  argument  sustaining  the 
views  of  the  President.  No  instance  in  which  Lincoln  ever 

1.  Benson  J.  Lossing,  in  Lincoln  Album,  p.  328. 

2.  See  Lincoln  and  Seward,  by  Gideon  Welles,  p.  188. 

Secretary  "Welles  distinctly  says  : 

"  Mr.  Seward  was  at  the  beginning  opposed  to  any  idea  of  concession,  which 
involved  giving  up  the  emissaries,  but  yielded  at  once,  and  with  dexterity,  to  the  per 
emptory  demand  of  Great  Britain." 

"  The  President  expressed  his  doubts  of  the  legality  of  the  capture  *  *  *  * 
and  from  the  first  was  willing  to  make  the  concession." 

Lincoln  and  Seward,  by  Gideon  Welles,  pp.  186-188. 


236  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

-acted  from  private  resentment  towards  any  individual,  or 
nation,  can  be  found.  Towards  individuals  who  had  injured 
him,  he  was  ever  magnanimous,  and  often  more  than  just  ; 
and  towards  nations,  no  more  striking  illustration  of  his  dig 
nified  disregard  of  personal  insult  and  injustice  could  be 
found  than  that  furnished  by  his  conduct  towards  England 
at  this  time.  He  was  not  insensible  of  the  personal  insults 
and  injuries  heaped  upon  him  in  England,  but  he  was  too 
great  to  be  to  any  extent  influenced  by  them.  It  required 
nerve  and  moral  courage  to  stem  the  tide  of  popular  feeling, 
but  he  did  not  for  a  moment  hesitate.  And  when  the 
excitement  of  the  hour  had  passed,  his  conduct  was  univer 
sally  approved.  Lovejoy's  speech  in  Congress  illustrates 
the  hatred  and  excitement  which  the  conduct  of  Great  Brit 
ain  produced.1 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  Second  Session  Thirty-seventh  Congress,  p.  333.  Lovejoy 
said:  "Every  time  this  Trent  affair  comes  up;  every  time  that  an  allusion  is  made  to 
it.  *  *  *  *  I  am  made  to  renew  the  horrible  grief  which  I  suffered 
when  the  news  of  the  surrender  of  Mason  and  Slidell  came.  I  acknowledge  it,  I 
literally  wept  tears  of  vexation.  I  hate  it;  and  I  hate  the  British  government,  I  have 
never  shared  in  the  traditionary  hostility  of  many  of  my  countrymen  against  Eng 
land.  But  I  now  here  publicly  avow  and  record  my  inextinguishable  hatred  of  that 
government.  I  mean  to  cherish  it  while  I  live,  and  to  bequeath  it  as  a  legacy  to  my 
children  when  I  die.  And  if  I  am  alive  when  war  with  England  comes,  as  sooner  or 
later  it  must,  for  we  shall  never  forget  this  humiliation,  and  if  I  can  carry  a  musket 
in  that  war,  I  will  carry  it.  1  have  three  sons,  and  I  mean  to  charge  them,  and  I 
do  now  publicly  and  solemnly  charge  them,  that  if  they  shall  have,  at  that  time, 
reached  the  years  of  manhood  and  strength,  they  shall  enter  into  that  war." 

Senator  Hale,  of  New  Hampshire,  went  so  far  as  to  threaten  the  administration 
of  Mr.  Lincoln. 

"If,"  said  he,  "this  administration  will  not  listen  to  the  voice  of  the  people,  they 
will  find  themselves  engulphed  in  a  fire  that  will  consume  them  like  stubble:  they 
will  be  helpless  before  a  power  that  will  hurl  them  from  their  places." 

See  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  37th  Congress,  January  7,  1862,  p.  177. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

EFFORTS   FOR   PEACEFUL   EMANCIPATION. 

PRESIDENT'S  MESSAGE.  —  CONDITION  OF  THE  COUNTRY.  —  DEATH  OF 
BAKER. — EULOGIES  UPON  HIM. — STANTON,  SECRETARY  OF  WAR. — 
ABOLITION  OF  SLAVERY  IN  THE  DISTRICT  OF  COLUMBIA. — PROHIBI 
TION  IN  THE  TERRITORIES. — EMPLOYMENT  OF  NEGROES  AS  SOL 
DIERS. — EMANCIPATION  IN  THE  BORDER  STATES. 

WHEN  Congress  met,  December  2,  1861,  no  decisive  mil 
itary  events  had  occurred,  but  the  great  drama  of  civil  war 
was  at  hand.  Thus  far  the  work  had  been  one  of  prepar 
ation.  Nearly  two  hundred  thousand  Union  troops,  under 
General  George  B.  McClellan,  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac, 
confronted  a  rebel  army,  then  supposed  to  number  about  the 
same,  but  now  known  to  have  been  much  smaller.  The 
President  in  his  message,  congratulated  Congress  that  the 
patriotism  of  the  people  had  proved  more  than  equal  to  the 
demands  made  upon  it,  and  that  the  number  of  troops  ten 
dered  to  the  government  greatly  exceeded  the  force  called 
for.  He  had  not  only  been  successful  in  holding  Maryland, 
Kentucky,  and  Missouri  in  the  Union,  but  those  three  states, 
neither  of  which  had  in  the  beginning  given,  or  promised 
through  state  organization,  a  single  soldier,  had  now  forty 
thousand  men  in  the  field  under  the  Union  flag.  In  West 
Virginia,  after  a  severe  struggle,  the  Union  had  triumphed, 
and  there  was  no  armed  rebel  force  north  of  the  Potomac 
or  east  of  the  Chesapeake,  while  the  cause  of  the  Union 
was  steadily  advancing  southward. 

On  the  slavery  question,  he  said  :  "  I  have  adhered  to 
the  act  of  Congress  freeing  persons  held  to  service,  used  for 

237 


238  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

insurrectionary  purposes."     In  relation  to  the  emancipation, 

and  arming  the  negroes,  he  said  :    "  The  maintenance  of  the 

integrity  of  the  Union  is  the  primary  object  of  the  contest." 

****** 

"  The  Union  must  be  preserved,  and  all  indispensable 
means  must  be  employed.  We  should  not  be  in  haste  to  de 
termine  that  radical  and  extreme  measures,  which  may  reach 
the  loyal,  as  well  as  the  disloyal,  are  indispensable." 

Before  proceeding  to  view  in  detail  the  action,  during 
this  session,  of  Congress  and  the  President  on  the  slavery 
question,  let  us  pause  a  moment  to  notice  the  honors  paid  in 
the  Senate  to  the  memory  of  Senator  Baker.  It  will  be  re 
membered  that  he  was  killed  at  Ball's  Bluff,  on  the  2ist  of 
October,  while  leading  his  troops  against  the  enemy. 

When  Congress  assembled  in  regular  session,  the  nth  of 
December  was  fixed  as  the  day  on  which  the  funeral  orations 
in  his  honor  should  be  pronounced  in  the  Senate.  The 
chamber  of  the  Senate  was  draped  in  black;  the  brilliant 
colors  of  the  national  flag,  which  the  war  made  all  worship, 
were  now  mingled  with  the  dark,  in  honor  of  the  dead  sol 
dier  and  senator.  The  floor  was  crowded  with  senators, 
members  of  the  House,  governors  of  states,  and  distin 
guished  civil  and  military  officers,  among  whom  Seward  and 
Chase,  and  the  Blairs  and  Stanton  were  conspicuous.  The 
galleries  were  filled  by  members  of  the  diplomatic  corps, 
ladies,  and  prominent  citizens  from  all  parts  of  the  republic. 
As  soon  as  Vice-President  Hamlin  had  called  the  Senate 
to  order,  President  Lincoln,  in  deep  mourning,  slowly 
entered  from  the  marble  room,  supported  by  the  senators 
from  Illinois:  Trumbull  and  Browning.  Not  very  long  be 
fore  he  had  been  present  among  the  chief  mourners  at  the 
funeral  in  the  White  House  of  his  protege,  young  Ellsworth, 
shot  down  in  the  bloom  of  youth,  and  now  it  was  Baker,  his 
old  comrade  at  the  bar  of  Sangamon  County;  his  successor 
in  Congress;  he  for  whom  the  President's  second  son, 
Edward  Baker  Lincoln,  had  been  named,  and  to  whom  he 
was  very  warmly  attached. 


EFFORTS  FOR  PEACEFUL  EMANCIPATION.        239 

Senator  Nesmith,  of  Oregon,  sorrowfully  announced  the 
death  of  Baker,  and  was  followed  by  McDougall  of  Califor 
nia,  in  one  of  the  most  touching  and  beautiful  speeches  ever 
heard  in  the  Senate.  Turning  towards  Lincoln,  aud  allud 
ing  to  the  dead  senator's  enthusiastic  love  of  poetry,  he  said: 
"  Many  years  since,  on  the  wild  plains  of  the  West,  in  the 
midst  of  a  starlight  night,  as  we  journeyed  together,  I  heard 
from  him  the  chant  of  that  noble  song,  *  The  Battle  of  Ivry.' 

"  He  loved  freedom,  if  you  please,  Anglo-Saxon  free 
dom,  for  he  was  of  that  grand  old  race." 

As  descriptive  of  the  warlike  scenes  of  every-day  occur 
rence  when  Baker  left  the  senatorial  forum  for  the  field, 
McDougall  repeated  in  a  voice  which  created  a  sensation 
throughout  the  Senate: 

"  Hurrah  !  the  foes  are  moving.     Hark  to  the  mingled  din 
Of  fife,  and  steed,  and  trump,  and  drum,  and  roaring  culverin! 
The  fiery  duke  is  pricking  fast  across  St.  Andre's  plain, 
With  all  the  hireling  chivalry  of  Guelders  and  Aimayne. 
Now  by  the  lips  of  those  ye  love,  fair  gentlemen  of  France, 
Charge  for  the  golden  lilies!  upon  them  with  the  lance!" 

And  then  comparing  Baker  at  Ball's  Bluffs  with  Henry 
of  Navarre,  McDougall  quoted  the  words: 

"  And  if  my  standard-bearer  fall,  as  fall  full  well  he  may, 
For  never  saw  I  promise  yet   of  such  a  bloody  fray — 
Press  where  ye  see  my  white  plume  shine,  amidst  the  ranks  of  war, 
And  be  your  oriflamme  to-day  the  helmet  of  Navarre!  " 

It  was  a  most  eloquent  speech,  and  as  McDougall  re 
called  the  old  comradeship  of  Lincoln  and  Baker,  and 
Browning,  and  himself  in  early  days  as  circuit  riders  in 
Central  Illinois,  every  heart  was  touched,  and  few  eyes  were 
dry. 

Summer's  speech  was  among  the  best  he  ever  made.  It 
was  perhaps  the  only  occasion  upon  which  he  ever  cut  loose 
from  his  manuscript,  and  gave  free  scope  to  the  inspiration 
of  the  scene  and  the  moment. 

Senator  Browning,  the  successor  of   Douglas,  followed, 


240  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  his  speech  was  as  good  as  the  best.  "  Baker,"  said  he,. 
"  to  a  greater  extent  than  most  men,  combined  the  force  and 
severity  of  logic,  with  grace,  fancy,  and  eloquence,  filling  at 
the  bar,  at  the  same  time  the  character  of  the  astute  and 
profound  lawyer,  and  of  the  able,  eloquent,  and  successful 
advocate;  and  in  the  Senate,  the  wise,  prudent,  and  discreet 
statesman  was  combined  with  the  chaste,  classic,  brilliant, 
and  persuasive  orator.  He  was  not  only  a  lawyer,  an  ora 
tor,  a  statesman,  and  a  soldier,  but  he  was  also  a  poet,  and 
at  times  spoke  and  acted  under  high  poetic  inspiration." 

The  remains  of  Baker  were  taken  across  the  continent  to 
California,  and  he  was  buried  by  the  side  of  his  friend 
Broderick,1  in  "The  Lone  Mountain  Cemetery."  There  on 
that  rocky  cliff,  by  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco,  looking  out 
upon  the  Golden  Gate  and  the  Pacific,  lies  the  dust  of  the 
gallant  soldier  and  eloquent  senator.  At  this  session  of  Con 
gress,  three  of  Lincoln's  old  associates  at  the  bar  in  Illinois 
(if  Baker  had  been  alive,  there  would  have  been  four),  occu 
pied  seats  in  the  Senate:  Trumbull  and  Browning  from 
Illinois,  and  McDougall  from  California.8 

There  was  something  very  beautiful  and  touching  in  the 
attachment  and  fidelity  of  these  his  old  Illinois  comrades  to 
Lincoln.  They  had  all  been  pioneers,  frontiersmen,  circuit- 
riders  together.  They  were  never  so  happy  as  when  talking 
over  old  times,  and  recalling  the  rough  experiences  of  their 
early  lives.  Had  they  met  at  Washington  in  calm  and  peace 
ful  weather,  on  sunny  days,  they  would  have  kept  up  their 
party  differences  as  they  did  at  home,  but  coming  together 
in  the  midst  of  the  fierce  storms  of  civil  war,  and  in  the  hour 

1.  Late  a  senator  from  California,  and  killed  in  a  duel.     Baker  had  pronounced 
in  San  Francisco,  a  funeral  oration  over  his  remains. 

2.  One  evening  in  the  summer  of  1863,  when  the  President  was  living  in  a  cot 
tage  at  the  "  Soldier's  Home,"  on  the  heights  north  of  the  capital,  some  one  spoke  to 
him  of  Baker's  burial  place  in  the  "Zone  Mountain  Cemetery."    The  name  seemed 
to  kindle  his  imagination  and  touch  his  heart.      He  spoke  of  this  "  Lone  Mountain  " 
on  the  shore  of  the  Pacific,  as  a  place  of  repose,  and  seemed  almost  to   envy  Baker 
his  place  of  rest.  Lincoln  then  gave  a  warm  and  glowing  sketch  of  Baker's  eloquence* 
lull  of  generous  admiration,  and  showing  how  he  had  loved  this  old  friend. 


EFFORTS  FOR  PEACEFUL  EMANCIPATION.        24! 

of  supreme  peril,  they  stood  together  like  a  band  of  brothers. 
Not  one  of  them  would  see  an  old  comrade  in  difficulty  or 
danger,  and  not  help  him  out.  The  memory  of  these  old 
Illinois  lawyers  and  statesmen:  Baker,  McDougall,  Trumbull, 
Lovejoy,  Washburne,  Browning,  and  others,  recalls  a  passage 
in  Webster's  reply  to  Hayne.  Speaking  of  Massachusetts- 
and  South  Carolina,  the  great  New  England  orator  said: 
"  Shoulder  to  shoulder  they  went  through  the  Revolution 
together;  hand  in  hand  they  stood  around  the  administra 
tion  of  Washington,  and  felt  his  own  great  arm  lean  on  them 
for  support." 

So,  in  the  far  more  difficult  administration  of  Lincoln,, 
these  old  and  trusty  comrades  of  his,  whatever  their  former 
differences,  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder,  and  hand  in  hand, 
around  the  administration  of  Lincoln;  his  strong  arm  leaned 
on  them  for  support,  and  that  support  was  given  vigorously 
and  with  unwavering  loyalty.  1 

On  the  1 4th  of  January,  1862,  Simon  Cameron  resigned 
the  position  of  Secretary  of  War,  accepting  the  place  of 
Minister  to  Russia.  Edwin  M.  Stanton  was  appointed  his 
successor.  The  new  secretary  soon  gave  evidence  of  his 
great  energy,  industry,  and  efficiency  as  an  organizer.  In 
accomplishing  great  objects  he  was  not  very  scrupulous 
about  the  means  of  removing  obstacles,  and  was  somewhat 

1.  McDougall,  before  going  to  California,  had  been  a  prominent  lawyer  at  Jack 
sonville  and  Chicago,  and  Attorney- General  of  Illinois.  He  was  the  bitter  enemy  of 
the  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Seward  having  caused  some  of  his  California  friends  to 
be  arrested,  and  confined  in  Fort  LaFayette.  I  shall  state  what  was  universally  known 
and  deeply  mourned  by  all  of  McDougall' s  friends,  when  I  mention  that  habits  of 
intemperance  overclouded  the  last  years  of  his  life.  But  it  could  not  be  said  of  him 
that  "  when  the  wine  was  in,  the  wit  was  out."  Poor  McDougall's  wit  was  always 
ready,  drunk  or  sober. 

Coming  down  from  the  Senate  chamber,  after  a  late  executive  session  In  which 
he  had  been  opposing  one  of  Seward' s  nominations,  he  found  the  rain  falling  in  tor 
rents,  the  night  dark  and  dismal,  and  his  own  steps  unsteady.  As  he  passed  from  the 
Capitol  gate  towards  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  the  senator  had  to  cross  a  ditch  full  of  filth 
and  water.  McDougall,  in  the  darkness,  made  a  misstep,  and  tumbled  in.  A  police 
man  ran  to  his  aid,  and  helping  him  out,  enquired  gruffly:  "Who  are  you,  any 
how  ?  "  "  I,  I  was,"  said  poor  Mac,  "  I,  I  was  Senator  McDougall,  when  I  fell  in,  now 
I  think,"  looking  at  his  filthy  garments  with  disgust,  "now,  I  think  I,  I  am  Seward.'* 
16 


242  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

careless  of  the  forms  and  restraints  of  law.  Honest  and 
true,  and  intensely  in  earnest  if  he  believed  a  thing  was 
right,  he  was  not  likely  to  be  thwarted  by  any  formal  obsta 
cles  which  might  stand  in  the  way.  He  was  irritable,  but 
placable  in  temper;  sometimes  doing  acts  of  injustice,  which 
the  more  patient  and  considerate  President  was  obliged  to 
correct,  but  he  himself  was  ready  to  repair  a  wrong  when 
satisfied  that  one  had  been  committed. 

At  this  session,  Congress  entered  upon  that  series  of  anti- 
slavery  measures  which  were  to  end  in  the  emancipation 
proclamation,  and  the  amendment  of  the  Constitution  pro 
hibiting  slavery  throughout  the  republic.  The  forbearance 
towards  slavery  and  slaveholders,  so  conspicuous  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war,  disappeared  rapidly  before  the  fierce 
necessities  of  the  conflict. 

The  House  had  scarcely  completed  its  organization,  when 
Lovejoy,  indignant  that  loyal  negroes  should  still  be  sent 
back  to  slavery  from  the  camps  of  the  Union  army,  on  the 
4th  of  December  introduced  a  bill  making  it  a  penal  offence 
for  any  officer  to  return  a  fugitive  slave.  Senator  Wilson 
gave  early  notice  of  a  bill  in  the  Senate  for  the  same  purpose. 
The  various  propositions  on  the  subject  finally  resulted  in 
the  enactment  of  an  additional  article  of  war,  forbidding,  on 
pain  of  dismissal  from  the  service,  the  arrest  of  any  fugitive, 
by  any  officer  or  person  in  the  military  or  naval  service  of 
the  United  States. 

The  location  of  the  capital  on  slave  territory  had  proved 
one  of  the  most  important  triumphs  ever  achieved  by  the 
slaveholders.  The  powerful  influence  of  society,  local  pub 
lic  sentiment,  fashion,  and  the  local  press,  in  favor  of  the 
institution,  was  ever  felt;  and  its  power,  from  1800  to  1860, 
could  scarcely  be  overestimated.  Our  country  had  long 
been  reproached  and  stigmatized  by  the  world,  and  the 
character  of  a  pro-slavery  despotism  over  the  colored  race 
fixed  upon  it,  by  reason  of  the  existence  of  slavery  at  the 
national  capital.  The  friends  of  liberty  had  for  years 
chafed  and  struggled  in  vain  against  this  malign  influence. 


EFFORTS  FOR  PEACEFUL  EMANCIPATION.   243 

Congress  had  supreme  power  to  legislate  for  the  District  of 
Columbia,  and  was  exclusively  responsible  for  the  continued 
existence  of  slavery  there.  Mr.  Lincoln,  it  will  be  remem 
bered,  when  serving  his  single  term  in  Congress,  had,  in 
December,  1849,  introduced  a  bill  for  its  gradual  abolition. 
The  President  and  his  friends  thought  it  quite  time  this  relic 
•of  barbarism  at  the  national  capital  should  be  destroyed. 

Senator  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts,  the  confidential  friend 
of  the  President,  on  the  i5th  of  December  introduced  a  bill 
for  the  immediate  emancipation  of  slaves  in  the  District  of 
Columbia,  and  the  payment  to  their  loyal  masters  of  an 
average  sum  of  three  hundred  dollars  for  each  slave  thus  set 
free;  providing  for  the  appointment  of  commissioners  to 
assess  the  sums  to  be  paid  each  claimant,  and  appropriating 
one  million  of  dollars  for  the  purpose.  The  debates  upon 
this  bill  involved  the  whole  subject  of  slavery,  the  rebellion, 
the  past,  present,  and  future  of  the  country.  The  bill  passed 
the  Senate  by  yeas  twenty  nine,  nays  six. 

When  the  bill  came  up  for  action  in  the  House,  contain 
ing  as  it  did  an  appropriation  of  money,  under  the  rules,  it 
was  necessarily  referred  to  the  committee  of  the  whole 
House.  As  there  was  a  large  number  of  bills  in  advance  of 
it  on  the  calendar,  its  enemies,  although  in  a  minority,  had 
hopes  of  delaying  action  or  defeating  it.  The  struggle  to 
take  up  the  bill  came  on  the  loth  of  April,  under  the  lead  of 
that  accomplished,  adroit,  and  bold  parliamentarian,  Thad- 
deus  Stevens.  He  moved  that  the  House  go  into  commit 
tee,  which  motion  was  agreed  to,  Mr.  Dawes  of  Massachu 
setts  in  the  chair.  The  chairman  called  the  calendar  in  its 
order,  and  on  motion  of  Mr.  Stevens  every  bill  was  laid 
aside  until  the  bill  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District 
was  reached.  An  unsuccessful  effort  to  lay  the  bill  on  the 
table  was  made  by  a  member  from  Maryland. 

F.  P.  Blair.  Jr.,  in  an  able  speech,  advocated  coloniza 
tion  in  connection  with  abolition.  He  said:  "  It  is  in  the 
gorgeous  region  of  the  American  tropics,  that  our  freedmen 
will  find  their  homes ;  among  a  people  without  prejudice 


244  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

against  their  color,  and  to  whom  they  will  carry  and  impart 
new  energy  and  vigor,  in  return  for  the  welcome  which  will 
greet  them,  as  the  pledge  of  the  future  protection  and 
friendship  of  our  great  republic;  I  look  with  confidence  to- 
this  movement,  as  the  true  and  only  solution  of  this 
question  of  slavery."  l  Mr.  Bingham  closed  an  eloquent 
speech  by  saying:  "One  year  ago  (nth  April,  1861), 
slavery  opened  its  batteries  of  treason  upon  Fort  Sumter  at 
Charleston;  let  the  anniversary  of  the  crime  be  signalized  by 
the  banishment  of  slavery  from  the  national  capital." 

The  bill  passed  the  House  by  ninety-two  ayes  to  thirty- 
eight  noes,  and,  on  the  i6th  of  April,  was  approved  by  the 
President.  Lincoln  said  :  "  Little  did  I  dream  in  1849, 
when  I  proposed  to  abolish  slavery  at  this  capital,  and  could, 
scarcely  get  a  hearing  for  the  proposition,  that  it  would  be 
so  soon  accomplished."  Still  less  did  he  anticipate  that  he 
as  President  would  be  called  upon  to  approve  the  measure. 

The  territories  had  long  been  the  battle-fields  on  which 
free  labor  and  slavery  had  struggled  for  supremacy.  The 
early  policy  of  the  government,  that  of  the  fathers,  was 
prohibition.  The  proposition  of  Jefferson,  that  slavery 
should  never  exist  in  any  territory  in  the  United  States,  failed 
only  by  one  vote,  caused  by  the  absence  of  a  delegate  from 
New  Jersey.  The  Ordinance  of  1787  inaugurated  the  policy. 
Slavery  was  strong  enough  in  1820  to  secure  a  division  by 
the  line  of  36°  30'  of  latitude,  in  what  was  called  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise.  In  1854,  that  compromise  was  repealed, 
with  the  avowed  purpose  on  the  part  of  the  slaveholders  of 
carrying  slavery  into  all  the  territories.  Then  came  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  that  Congress  could  not  prohibit  slavery 
in  the  territories,  and  then  followed  the  hand-to-hand 
struggle  in  Kansas.  The  distinct  issue  of  the  exclusion  of 
slavery  by  Congressional  enactment  was,  in  1860,  submitted 
to  the  people,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  upon  the  distinct 
and  unequivocal  pledge  of  prohibition. 

On  the  24th  of   March,  1862,  Mr.  Arnold,   of    Illinois> 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  37th  Congress,  pp.  1634-1635. 


EFFORTS  FOR  PEACEFUL  EMANCIPATION.        245 

introduced  "  a  bill  to  render  freedom  national,  and  slavery 
sectional,"  and  which,  after  reciting:  "  To  the  end  that  free 
dom  may  be  and  remain  forever  the  fundamental  law  of  the 
land  in  all  places  whatsoever,  so  far  as  it  lies  in  the  power,  or 
depends  upon  the  action  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States  to  make  it  so,"  enacted  that  slavery,  except  as  a 
punishment  for  crime,  whereof  the  party  had  been  duly  con 
victed,  should  henceforth  cease  and  be  prohibited  forever, 
in  all  the  following  places,  viz.:  First,  in  all  the  territories 
of  the  United  States  then  existing,  or  thereafter  to  be  formed 
.or  acquired  in  any  way.  Second,  In  all  places  purchased 
or  acquired  with  the  consent  of  the  United  States  for  forts, 
magazines,  dock-yards,  and  other  needful  buildings,  and 
over  which  the  United  States  have  or  shall  have  exclusive 
legislative  jurisdiction.  Third,  In  all  vessels  on  the  high 
seas.  Fourth,  In  all  places  whatsoever  where  the  national 
government  has  exclusive  jurisdiction."  ! 

Mr.  Cox  opposed  the  bill  vehemently,  declaring  that,  in 
his  judgment,  it  was  a  bill  for  the  benefit  of  secession.  Mr. 
Fisher,  in  an  able  speech,  also  opposed  the  passage  of  the 
.bill.  In  conclusion,  he  appealed  to  the  majority  to  "  let  this 
cup  pass  from  our  lips."  He  said:  "  We  have  done  nobly; 
•we  have  done  much  in  behalf  of  liberty  and  humanity  at  this 
•session  of  Congress.  Let  us  then  here  call  a  halt  and  take 
our  bearings."  Finally,  as  a  concession  to  the  more  conser 
vative  members,  Mr.  Lovejoy  offered  an  amendment  strik 
ing  out  all  except  the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  territories, 
which  amendment  Mr.  Arnold  accepted,  and  on  which  he 
•demanded  the  previous  question. 

The  bill  passed  the  House,  ayes,  eighty-five,  noes,  fifty, 
was  slightly  modified  in  the  Senate,  and  finally  passed  the 
House  on  theipth  _  QJLJ-a*re>  prohibiting  slavery  forever  in 
all  the  territories  of  the  United  States  then  existing,  or  that 
might  thereafter  be  acquired.  Thus,  the  second  great  step 
towards  the  destruction  of  slavery  was  taken  ;  and  thus  was 
terminated  the  great  struggle  over  its  existence  in  the  terri- 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  37th  Congress,  p.  2042. 


246  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

tories,  which  had  agitated  the  country,  with  short  intervals^ 
from  the  organization  of  the  republic.  Had  this  act  been 
passed  in  1784,  when  Jefferson  substantially  proposed  it, 
the  terrible  war  of  the  slaveholders  might  not  have  come. 
The  institution  would  never  have  grown  to  such  vast  power. 
Missouri  would  have  had  the  wealth  of  Ohio,  and*  slavery, 
driven  by  moral  and  economical  influences  towards  the 
Gulf,  would  have  gradually  and  peacefully  disappeared.1 

Slavery  having  been  abolished  at  the  capital,  and  pro 
hibited  in  all  the  territories,  the  question  of  arming  the 
freedmen,  and  of  freeing  the  slaves  and  organizing  and 
arming  them  as  soldiers  that  they  might  fight  for  their  lib 
erty  and  that  of  their  race,  pressed  more  and  more  upon  the 
government. 

The  first  regiment  of  negro  troops  raised  during  the  war 
was  organized  by  General  David  Hunter,  in  the  spring  of 
1862,  while  in  command  of  the  Department  of  the  South. 
Finding  himself  charged  with  the  duty  of  holding  the  coasts 
of  Florida,  South  Carolina,  and  Georgia,  with  inadequate 
force,  and  these  three  states  swarming  with  able  bodied 
negroes,  ready  to  fight  for  their  liberty,  he  saw  no  reason 
why  they  should  not  be  organized  and  used  as  soldiers. 

On  the  pth  of  July,  1862,  Senator  Grimes,  of  Iowa,  pro 
posed  that  "  there  should  be  no  exemption  from  military 
service  on  account  of  color,"  and  authorized  the  President 
to  organize  negro  soldiers.  The  proposition  was  vehemently 
opposed  by  the  border  states,  and  by  some  of  the  demo 
cratic  members  of  Congress.  Senator  Garret  Davis,  of 
Kentucky,  said  :  "  You  propose  to  place  arms  in  the  hands 
of  the  slaves,  or  such  of  them  as  are  able  to  handle  arms, 
and  manumit  the  whole  mass,  men,  women,  and  children, 
and  leave  them  among  us.  Do  you  expect  us  to  give  our 
sanction  and  approval  to  these  things  ?  No  !  No  !  We 
would  regard  their  authors  as  our  worst  enemies,  and  there 

1.  The  New  York  Tribune  of  June  20,  1862,  speaking  of  the  law,  said :  "  It  Is  not 
often  that  so  much  of  that  '  righteousness  that  exalteth  a  nation,'  Is  embodied  In  a 
legislative  act.  Had  this  act  been  passed  in  1784,  when  Jefferson  proposed  something 
similar,  the  war  in  which  we  are  now  engaged  would  never  have  existed." 


EFFORTS  FOR  PEACEFUL  EMANCIPATION.        247 

is  no  foreign  despotism,  that  could  come  to  our  rescue,  that 
we  would  not  joyfully  embrace  before  we  would  submit.1 

The  proposition  authorizing  the  employment  of  negroes 
as  soldiers,  and  conferring  freedom  on  all  who  should  render 
military  service,  and  on  the  families  of  all  such  as  belonged 
to  rebel  owners,  became  a  law  on  the  iyth  of  July,  1862. 
On  this  subject  Lincoln  said  :  "  Negroes,  like  other  people, 
act  from  motives.  Why  should  they  do  anything  for  us,  if 
we  do  nothing  for  them  ?  If  they  stake  their  lives  for  us, 
they  must  be  prompted  by  the  strongest  of  motives,  even 
the  promise  of  freedom.  And  the  promise  being  made 
must  be  kept." 

The  opposition  to  the  employment  of  the  negroes  as  sol 
diers,  seems  now  almost  inexplicable.  That  the  master's 
claim  to  the  negro  should  be  set  up  in  the  way  of  the  gov 
ernment's  superior  claim  to  the  service  of  the  negro  as  a  sol 
dier,  seems  to  us  very  strange.  The  government  could,  for 
sooth,  take  the  son  from  his  father  for  a  soldier,  but  not  the 
slave  from  the  master  !  If  the  slave  be  considered  as  prop 
erty,  the  plea  of  the  master  is  equally  absurd.  It  is  con 
ceded  by  all  that  the  government,  in  case  of  necessity,  could 
take  the  horses  and  animals  of  loyal  or  disloyal,  and  press 
them  into  service.  And  if  animals,  why  not  persons  held  as 
property?  If  the  negroes  were  property,  they  could  be 
taken  as  such  for  public  use,  and  if  considered  as  persons, 
they  were  like  others  subject  to  call  for  military  service. 

In  discussing  the  many  and  grave  questions  growing  out 
of  the  war,  confiscation,  and  emancipation,  wide  differences 
appeared  among  the  friends  of  the  administration.  The 
discussions  of  these  questions  in  Congress,  were  earnest, 
and  often  intemperate  and  violent,  and  the  opinions  and  con 
duct  of  the  President  were  often  criticised  by  his  own  political 
friends,  with  a  degree  of  passion  rarely  paralleled  by  the 
attacks  of  even  political  opponents  upon  the  Executive. 
The  President  bore  these  unjust  and  often  unfair  attacks 
with  patience,  and  without  resentment.  Senator  Trumbull, 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  37th  Congress,  4th  Part,  p.  3205,  July  9,  1862. 


248  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

from  Illinois,  on  the  2yth  of  June,  1862,  made  some  remarks 
in  relation  to  him,  so  just  and  so  appropriate  that  they  will 
help  us  to  understand  his  character.  He  said  : 

"  I  know  enough  of  honest  Abraham  Lincoln  to  know  that  he  will  not 
regard  as  his  truest  friends  men  who  play  the  courtier,  and  swear  that  every 
thing  he  does  is  right.  He, sir,  is  honest  enough,  and  great  enough,  and  tal 
ented  enough,  to  know  that  he  is  not  perfect,  and  to  thank  his  friends  who 
rally  around  him  in  this  hour  of  trial,  and  honestly  suggest  to  him,  when 
they  believe  such  to  be  the  fact,  that  some  measures  that  he  has  adopted 
may  not  be  the  wisest.  He  will  think  better  of  a  man  who  has  the  can 
dor  and  the  honesty  to  do  it,  than  he  will  of  the  sycophant  who  tells  him 
'all  is  right  that  you  do,  and  you  cannot  do  wrong.'  Sir,  he  is  no 
believer  in  '  the  divine  right  of  kings,'  or  that  a  chief  magistrate  can 
never  do  wrong.  He  is  a  believer  in  the  intelligence  of  the  people,  and 
knowing  his  own  fallibility,  is  not  above  listening  to  their  voice."  l 

There  was  a  very  large  and  earnest  party  among  the 
President's  friends,  who  urged  immediate  and  universal 
emancipation.  Regarding  slavery  as  the  cause  of  the  war, 
and  believing  that  freedom  would  bring  the  negroes  to  the 
Union  cause,  they  were  impatient  of  any  delay,  or  consid 
eration  of  the  rights  of  the  owners,  even  when  the  owners 
were  loyal.  Up  to  this  period,  as  has  been  observed,  Lin 
coln  had  carefully  considered  the  rights,  under  the  Constitu 
tion,  of  the  loyal  slaveholders  of  the  border  states.  Nat 
urally  conservative,  he  hesitated  before  adopting  the  extreme 
measure  of  emancipation.  But  the  question  was  every  day 
becoming  more  and  more  pressing. 

On  the  6th  of  March,  1862,  in  a  special  message  to  Con 
gress,  he  said  :  "  In  my  judgment,  gradual,  and  not  sud 
den,  emancipation,  is  better  for  all."2  In  this  message  he 
suggested  the  adoption  of  a  joint  resolution,  declaring  "that 
the  United  States  ought  to  cooperate  with  any  state  which 
may  adopt  a  gradual  abolition  of  slavery,  giving  to  such 
state  pecuniary  aid  to  compensate  for  the  inconvenience, 
public  and  private,  produced  by  such  change  of  system."3 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  37th  Congress,  part  4th.,  p.  2973. 

2.  President's  Message.    McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  209. 

3.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  37th  Congress,  part  2d,  p.  1102. 


EFFORTS  FOR  PEACEFUL  EMANCIPATION.   249 

He  strongly  urged  this  policy  as  a  means  of  shortening  the 
war,  with  all  its  expenses  and  evils.  He  concluded  his  mess 
age  by  saying  :  "  In  full  view  of  my  great  responsibility  to 
my  God,  and  to  my  country,  I  earnestly  beg  the  attention  of 
Congress  and  the  people  to  the  subject."  1 

On  the  loth  of  March,  Roscoe  Conkling,  of  New  York, 
moved  the  adoption  by  the  House,  of  the  resolution  which 
the  President  had  sent  to  the  House  with  his  message.2 
Thaddeus  Stevens  said  :  "  I  think  it  (the  President's  prop 
osition)  about  the  most  diluted  milk  and  water  gruel  proposi 
tion  that  was  ever  given  to  the  American  people."3  Mr. 
Olin,  of  New  York,  on  the  contrary,  said  :  "  It  is  the  mag 
nanimous,  the  great,  the  god-like  policy  of  the  administra 
tion."4  It  was  vehemently  opposed  by  the  members  from 
the  border  states,  the  very  states  it  was  intended  especially 
to  aid.  Hickman,  of  Pennsylvania,  said  :  "  I  regard  this 
message  as  an  awful  note  of  warning  to  those  residing  in 
the  border  states,  and  as  an  act  of  justice  and  magnanimity 
to  them,  which  I  am  sorry  to  see  some  of  their  representa 
tives  on  this  floor  fail  to  appreciate."5  The  resolution  was 
.adopted. 

On  the  loth  of  March,  1862,  there  was  a  conference 
between  the  President  and  the  representatives  of  the  border 
states,  at  which  the  subject  was  discussed,  and  the  President 
earnestly  urged  his  plan  upon  their  consideration,  but  no 
action  followed.  On  the  i2th  of  July,  the  President  invited 
the  members  of  Congress  from  the  border  states  to  meet 
him  at  the  Executive  Mansion,  and  submitted  to  them  an 
appeal  in  writing,  in  which  he  said  : 

"  Believing  that  you,  in  the  border  states,  hold  more  power  for  good 
than  any  other  equal  number  of  members,  I  feel  it  a  duty  which  I  cannot 
justifiably  waive,  to  make  this  appeal  to  you."  *  *  * 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  37th  Congress,  part  2d,  p.  1103. 

2.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  37th  Congress,  part  2d,  p.  1154. 

3.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  37th  Congress,  part  2d,  p.  1154. 

4.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  37th  Congress,  part  2d,  p.  1170. 

5.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  37th  Congress,  part  2d,  p.  1176. 


250  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  I  intend  no  reproach  or  complaint  when  I  assure  you  that  in  my 
opinion,  if  you  all  had  voted  for  the  resolution  in  the  gradual  emancipa 
tion  message  of  last  March,  the  war  would  now  be  substantially  ended. 
And  the  plan  therein  proposed  is  yet  one  of  the  most  potent  and  swift 
means  of  ending  it.  Let  the  states  which  are  in  rebellion  see  definitely 
and  certainly  that  in  no  event  will  the  states  you  represent  ever  join  their 
proposed  confederacy,  and  they  cannot  much  longer  maintain  the  con 
test."  *  *  * 

4 '  If  the  war  continues  long,  as  it  must,  if  the  object  be  not  sooner 
attained,  the  institution  in  your  states  will  be  extinguished  by  mere  fric 
tion  and  abrasion,  by  the  mere  incidents  of  the  war.  It  will  be  gone, 
and  you  will  have  nothing  valuable  in  lieu  of  it.  Much  of  its  value  is 
gone  already.  How  much  better  for  you  and  for  your  people  to  take  the 
step  which  at  once  shortens  the  war  and  secures  substantial  compensa 
tion  for  that  which  is  sure  to  be  wholly  lost  in  any  other  event  !  How 
much  better  to  thus  save  the  money  which  else  we  sink  forever  in  the 
war  !  How  much  better  to  do  it  while  we  can,  lest  the  war  ere  long 
render  us  pecuniarily  unable  to  do  it !  How  much  better  for  you  as 
seller,  and  the  nation  as  buyer,  to  sell  out  and  buy  out  that  without 
which  the  war  could  never  have  been,  than  to  sink  both  the  thing  to  be 
sold  and  the  price  of  it  in  cutting  one  another's  throats  ! " 

"  I  do  not  speak  of  emancipation  at  once,  but  of  a  decision  to  eman 
cipate  gradually"  *  *  * 

"  Upon  these  considerations  I  have  again  begged  your  attention  to 
the  message  of  March  last.  Before  leaving  the  Capitol,  consider  and 
discuss  it  among  yourselves.  You  are  patriots  and  statesmen,  and  as 
such  I  pray  you  consider  this  proposition,  and  at  the  least  commend  it  to 
the  consideration  of  your  states  and  people.  As  you  would  perpetuate 
popular  government  for  the  best  people  in  the  world,  I  beseech  you  that 
you  do  in  nowise  omit  this.  Our  common  country  is  in  great  peril, 
demanding  the  loftiest  views  and  boldest  action  to  bring  a  speedy  relief. 
Once  relieved,  its  form  of  government  is  saved  to  the  world,  its  beloved 
history  and  cherished  memories  are  vindicated,  and  its  happy  future  fully 
assured  and  rendered  inconceivably  grand.  To  you,  more  than  to  any 
others,  the  privilege  is  given  to  assure  that  happiness  and  swell  that 
grandeur,  and  to  link  your  own  names  therewith  forever."  J 

In  his  proclamation  of  the  iQth  of  May,  1862,  relating 
to  the  proclamation  of  General  Hunter,  declaring  the  slaves 
in  the  states  of  Georgia,  Florida,  and  South  Carolina  free, 
the  President  alludes  to  his  proposition  to  aid  the  states- 
which  should  inaugurate  emancipation,  and  says: 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  pp.  213,  214. 


EFFORTS  FOR  PEACEFUL  EMANCIPATION.        251 

"  To  the  people  of  those  states  I  now  earnestly  appeal.  I  do  not 
argue — I  beseech  you  to  make  the  argument  for  yourselves — you  cannot 
if  you  would,  be  blind  to  the  signs  of  the  times.  I  beg  of  you  a  calm 
and  enlarged  consideration  of  them,  ranging,  if  it  may  be,  far  above 
personal  and  partisan  politics.  This  proposal  makes  common  cause  for 
a  common  object,  casting  no  reproach  upon  any.  It  acts  not  the  Phari 
see.  The  change  it  contemplates  would  come  gently  as  the  dews  of 
heaven,  not  rending  or  wrecking  anything.  Will  you  not  embrace  it  ? 
.So  much  good  has  not  been  done  by  one  effort,  in  all  past  time,  as, 
in  the  providence  of  God,  it  is  now  your  high  privilege  to  do.  May  the 
vast  future  not  have  to  lament  that  you  have  neglected  it."  l 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  interview  between  the 
President  and  the  members  of  Congress  from  the  border 
states,  took  place  on  Saturday,  the  i2th  of  July.  On  Sun 
day,  July  1 3th,  two  members  of  Congress  from  Illinois 
called  upon  him  at  his  summer  residence  at  the  "  Soldier's 
Home."  He  conversed  freely  of  his  late  interview  with  the 
border  state  members,  and  expressed  the  deep  anxiety  he 
felt  that  his  proposition  should  be  acted  upon  and  accepted 
by  these  states.  Rarely,  if  ever,  was  he  kno\vn  to  manifest 
such  great  solicitude.  In  conclusion,  addressing  Lovejoy, 
one  of  his  visitors,  he  said  :  "  Oh,  how  I  wish  the  border 
states  would  accept  my  proposition.  Then,"  said  he,  "  you, 
Lovejoy,  and  you,  Arnold,  and  all  of  us,  would  not  have 
lived  in  vain  !  The  labor  of  your  life,  Lovejoy,  would 
be  crowned  with  success.  You  would  live  to  see  the  end  of 
slavery." 

In  his  second  annual  message,  the  President  again  urged 
the  proposition  of  gradual  and  compensated  emancipation, 
with  an  earnestness  which  can  scarcely  be  over-stated.  He 
presented  a  most  able  and  impressive  argument  to  show  that 
the  plan  proposed  would  shorten  the  war  and  lessen  the 
expenditure  of  money  and  of  blood.  He  concluded  a  most 
eloquent  appeal  to  Congress  in  these  words  : 

"The  dogmas  of  the  quiet  past  are  inadequate  to  the  stormy  pres 
ent.  The  occasion  is  piled  high  with  difficulty,  and  we  must  rise  with 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  251. 


252  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  occasion.     As  our  case  is  new,  so  we  must  think  anew,  and  act  anew. 
We  must  disenthrall  ourselves,  and  then  we  shall  save  our  country." 

"Fellow  citizens,  we  cannot  escape  history.  We,  of  this  Congress 
and  this  administration,  will  be  remembered  in  spite  of  ourselves.  No 
personal  significance  or  insignificance  can  spare  one  or  another  of  us. 
The  fiery  trial  through  which  we  pass  will  light  us  down,  in  honor  or  dis 
honor,  to  the  latest  generation.  We  say  we  are  for  the  Union.  The  world 
•will  not  forget  that  we  say  this.  We  know  how  to  save  the  Union.  The 
world  knows  we  do  know  how  to  save  it.  We — even  we  here, — hold  the 
power,  and  bear  the  responsibility.  In  giving  freedom  to  the  slave  we 
assttre  freedom  to  \.\\Q  free — honorable  alike  in  what  we  give  and  what  we 
preserve.  We  shall  nobly  save,  or  meanly  lose,  the  last,  best  hope  of 
earth.  Other  means  may  succeed;  this  could  not  fail.  The  way  is 
plain,  peaceful,  generous,  just — a  way  which,  if  followed,  the  world  will 
forever  applaud,  and  God  must  forever  bless." 

The  plan  so  earnestly  and  repeatedly  pressed  by  the 
President  resulted  in  no  action.  He  realized  that  the  time 
was  rapidly  approaching,  when  it  would  become  his  duty  as 
Commander  in  Chief  to  issue  a  military  proclamation  of 
immediate  and  unconditional  emancipation. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION. 

LINCOLN  AND  EMANCIPATION. —  GREELEY  DEMANDS  IT. —  THE  PEO 
PLE  PRAY  FOR  IT. —  MCCLELLAN'S  WARNING. —  CRITTENDEN'S 
APPEAL. —  LOVEJOY'S  RESPONSE. —  THE  PROCLAMATION  ISSUED. — 
ITS  RECEPTION. —  THE  QUESTION  OF  ITS  VALIDITY. 

THE  bestowal  of  freedom  upon  the  negro  race,  by  mili 
tary  edict,  had  long  been  considered,  and  was  now  to  be 
decided  upon  by  the  President.  The  dream  of  his  youth, 
the  aspiration  of  his  life,  was  to  be  the  liberator  of  the  negro 
race.  l  But  in  his  wish  to  promote  alike  the  happiness  of 
white  and  black,  he  hesitated  before  the  stupendous  decree 
of  immediate  emancipation.  He  wished  the  change  to  be 
gradual,  as  he  said  in  his  appeal  to  the  border  states,  "  he 
wished  it  to  come  gently  as  the  dews  of  heaven,  not  rend 
ing  or  wrecking  anything." 

The  people  were  watching  his  action  with  the  most 
intense  solicitude.  Every  means  was  used  to  influence  him, 
.alike  by  those  who  favored,  and  those  who  opposed,  emanci 
pation.  Thousands  of  earnest  men  believed  that  the  fate, 
not  only  of  slavery,  but  of  the  republic,  depended  upon  his 
decision.  The  anxiety  of  many  found  expression  in  daily 
prayers,  sent  up  from  church,  farm-house,  and  cabin,  that 
God  would  guide  the  President  to  a  right  conclusion.  The 
friends  of  freedom  across  the  Atlantic  sent  messages  urg 
ing  the  destruction  of  slavery.  Many  of  the  President's 

1.  See  his  Lyceum  speech  of  January  27th,  1837,  in  which  he  said  :  "Towering 
genius  disdains  a  beaten  path.  *  *  *  It  thirsts  and  burns  for  dis 

tinction,  and    will  seek    it  by  emancipating  slaves,   or  in   regions  hitherto  unex 
plored,"  etc. 

253 


254  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

friends  believed  that  there  could  be  no  permanent  peace 
while  slavery  existed.  "  Seize,"  cried  they,  "  seize  the  oppor 
tunity,  and  hurl  the  thunderbolt  of  emancipation,  and  shat 
ter  slavery  to  atoms,  and  then  the  republic  will  live.  Make 
the  issue  distinctly  between  liberty  and  slavery,  and  no  for 
eign  nation  will  dare  to  intervene  in  behalf  of  slavery." 

It  was  thus  that  the  friends  of  liberty  impeached  slavery 
before  the  President,  and  demanded  that  he  should  pass  sen 
tence  of  death  upon  it.  They  declared  it  the  implacable 
enemy  of  the  republic.  "  A  rebel  and  a  traitor  from  the 
beginning,  it  should  be  declared  an  outlaw."  "  The  institu 
tion  now,"  said  they,  "  reels  and  totters  to  its  fall.  It  has 
by  its  own  crime  placed  itself  in  your  power  as  Commander 
in  Chief.  You  cannot,  if  you  would,  and  you  ought  not,  if 
you  could,  make  with  it  any  terms  of  compromise.  You  have 
abolished  it  at  the  national  capital,  prohibited  it  in  all  the 
territories.  You  have  cut  off  and  made  free  West  Virginia. 
You  have  enlisted,  and  are  enlisting,  negro  soldiers,  who 
have  bravely  shed  their  blood  for  the  Union  on  many  a  hard 
fought  battle-field.  You  have  pledged  your  own  honor  and 
the  national  faith,  that  they  and  their  families  shall  be  for 
ever  free.  That  pledge  you  will  sacredly  keep.  Here  then 
you  stand  on  the  threshold  of  universal  emancipation.  You 
will  not  go  back,  do  not  halt,  nor  hesitate,  but  strike,  and 
slavery  dies." 

On  the  i  pth  of  August,  Horace  Greeley  published,  under 
his  own  name,  in  the  New  York  Tribune,  a  letter  addressed 
to  the  President,  urging  emancipation.  With  characteristic 
exaggeration,  he  headed  his  long  letter  of  complaint :  "  The 
Prayer  of  Twenty  Millions  of  People ! "  It  was  full  of 
errors  and  mistaken  inferences,  and  written  in  ignorance  of 
many  facts  which  it  was  the  duty  of  the  President  to  con 
sider. 

On  the  22d  of  August,  the  President  replied.  He  made 
no  response  to  its  "  erroneous  statements  of  facts,"  its 
"false  inferences,"  nor  to  its  "impatient  and  dictatorial 
tone,"  but  in  a  calm,  dignified,  and  kindly  spirit,  as  to  "an 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.  255 

old  friend,  whose  heart  he  had  always  supposed  to  be  right," 
he  availed  himself  of  the  opportunity  to  set  himself  right 
before  the  people. 

The  letter  was  as  follows 

EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
Washington,  Friday,  Aug.  22,  1862. 
Hon.  Horace  Greeley  : 

DEAR  SIR  :  I  have  just  read  yours  of  the  igth  instant,  addressed  to 
myself,  through  the  New  York  Tribune. 

If  there  be  in  it  any  statements  or  assumptions  of  fact,  which  I  may 
know  to  be  erroneous,  I  do  not  now  and  here  controvert  them. 

If  there  be  any  inferences  which  I  believe  to  be  falsely  drawn,  I  do 
not  now  and  here  argue  against  them. 

If  there  be  perceptible  in  it,  an  impatient  and  dictatorial  tone,  I 
waive  it  in  deference  to  an  old  friend,  whose  heart  I  have  always  sup 
posed  to  be  right. 

As  to  the  policy  "  I  seem  to  be  pursuing,"  as  you  say,  I  have  not 
meant  to  leave  any  one  in  doubt.  I  would  save  the  Union.  I  would  save 
it  in  the  shortest  way  under  the  Constitution. 

The  sooner  the  national  authority  can  be  restored,  the  nearer  the 
Union  will  be — the  Union  as  it  was. 

If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union,  unless  they  could 
at  the  same  time  save  slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them. 

If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union,  unless  they  could 
at  the  same  time  destroy  slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them. 

My  paramount  object  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  not  either  to  save  or 
destroy  slavery. 

If  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any  slave,  I  would  do  it. 
And  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves,  I  would  do  it.  And 
if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  some,  and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would 
also  do  that. 

What  I  do  about  slavery,  and  the  colored  race,  I  do  because  I  believe 
it  helps  to  save  the  Union,  and  what  I  forbear,  I  forbear  because  I  do 
not  believe  it  would  help  to  save  the  Union. 

I  shall  do  less  whenever  I  believe  what  I  am  doing  hurts  the  cause, 
and  shall  do  more,  whenever  I  believe  doing  more  will  help  the  cause. 

I  shall  try  to  correct  errors,  when  shown  to  be  errors,  and  I  shall 
adopt  new  views,  so  fast  as  they  shall  appear  to  be  true  views. 

I  have  here  stated  my  purpose,  according  to  my  view  of  official  duty, 
and  I  intend  no  modification  of  my  oft-expressed  personal  wish,  that  all 

men  everywhere  could  be  free.  Yours, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

To  this  letter  Mr.  Greeley,  on  the  24th  of  July,  replied 


256  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

through  the  Tribune,  and  his  tone  and  spirit  may  be  inferred 
from  a  single  paragraph:  "  Do  you,"  said  the  editor  of  the 
paper  to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  "  Do  you  pro 
pose  to  do  this  (save  the  Union)  by  recognizing,  obeying, 
and  enforcing  the  laws,  or  by  ignoring,  disregarding,  and, 
in  fact,  defying  them  ? "  Such  was  the  insolent  language  of 
this  "  old  friend." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Union  men  of  the  border  states 
were  urging  the  President  not  to  interfere  with  slavery,  and 
from  the  headquarters  of  the  army  on  the  Potomac,  General 
McClellan  wrote  to  him,  under  date  of  July  yth,  warning 
him  by  saying  that  a  "  declaration  of  radical  views,  especially 
upon  slavery,  will  rapidly  disintegrate  our  present  armies." 
To  be  thus  menaced  by  the  general  commanding,  and  noti 
fied  that  the  measure  he  had  under  consideration  would 
"rapidly  destroy  the  armies  in  the  field,"  was  a  very  grave 
matter. 

There  were  at  this  time  in  Congress  two  distinguished 
men,  who  well  represented  the  two  contending  parties  into 
which  the  friends  of  the  Union  were  divided — John  J.  Crit- 
tenden,  of  Kentucky,  and  Owen  Lovejoy,  of  Illinois.  Both 
were  sincere  and  devoted  personal  friends  of  the  President. 
Each  enjoyed  his  confidence,  each  was  honest  in  his  convic 
tions,  and  each,  it  is  believed,  would  have  cheerfully  given 
his  life  to  save  the  republic.  Lovejoy,  the  ultra-abolition 
ist,  was  one  of  Lincoln's  confidential  advisers.  Crittenden 
had  been  in  his  earlier  days — in  those  days  when  the  Presi 
dent  was  a  Henry  Clay  whig — his  ideal  of  a  statesman. 
Lincoln  and  Crittenden  were  both  natives  of  Kentucky,  old 
party  associates,  and  life  long  personal  friends.  Crittenden 
— a  man  whom  every  one  loved — now  old,  his  locks  whitened 
by  more  than  seventy  years,  yet  still  retaining  all  his  physi 
cal  and  mental  vigor,  had  been  a  distinguished  Senator, 
Governor  of  his  state,  and  Attorney  General  of  the  United 
States.  Now,  in  his  extreme  old  age,  he  had  accepted  a 
seat  in  Congress  that  he  might  aid  in  preserving  the  Union. 
His  tall  and  venerable  form,  his  white  head,  which  a  mem- 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION, 


ber  l  said  "  was  like  a  Pharos  on  the  sea  to  guide  our  storm- 
tossed  and  storm-tattered  vessel  to  its  haven,"  made  him  a 
conspicuous  figure  on  the  floor  of  the  House.  He  was 
a  courtly,  fascinating,  genial  gentleman  of  the  old  school. 
He  would  often  relieve  the  tedium  of  routine  business  by 
stories  and  anecdotes  of  western  life,  and  characteristic  inci 
dents  of  Clay,  Webster,  Calhoun,  Benton,  and  Jackson,  with 
whom  he  had  served  many  years  in  public  life.  Of  Love- 
joy  and  his  relations  to  the  President  we  have  already 
spoken. 

When  the  question  of  emancipation  became  the  engross 
ing  topic,  the  border  state  members  of  Congress,  with  wise 
sagacity,  selected  Mr.  Crittenden  to  make  on  the  floor  of  the 
House  a  public  appeal  to  the  President  that  he  withhold  the 
proclamation,  which  they  believed  would  lead  to  disaster 
and  ruin.  None  who  witnessed  can  ever  forget  the  eloquent 
and  touching  appeal  which  this  venerable  statesman  and! 
great  orator  made.  He  said: 

"  I  voted  against  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  opposed  him  honestly  and  sin 
cerely;  but  Mr.  Lincoln  has  won  me  to  his  side.  There  is  a  niche  in 
the  temple  of  fame,  a  niche  near  to  Washington,  which  should  be  occu 
pied  by  the  statue  of  him  who  shall  save  his  country.  Mr.  Lincoln  has 
a  mighty  destiny.  It  is  for  him,  if  he  will,  to  step  into  that  niche.  It 
is  for  him  to  be  but  a  President  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and 
there  will  his  statue  be.  But  if  he  chooses  to  be  in  these  times,  a  mere 
sectarian  and  a  party  man,  that  niche  will  be  reserved  for  some  future 
and  better  patriot.  It  is  in  his  power  to  occupy  a  place  next  to  Wash 
ington  —  the  founder  and  the  preserver,  side  by  side.  Sir,  Mr.  Lincoln 
is  no  coward.  His  not  doing  what  the  Constitution  forbade  him  to  do, 
and  what  all  our  institutions  forbade  him  to  do,  is  no  proof  of  coward 
ice."2 

Lovejoy  made  an  impassioned  impromptu  reply  to  Crit 
tenden.  He  said:  "  There  can  be  no  union  until  slavery  is 
destroyed.  *  *  We  may  bind  with  iron  bands,  but 
there  will  be  no  permanent,  substantial  Union,  and  this 
nation  will  not  be  homogeneous,  and  be  one  in  truth  as  well 
as  in  form,  until  slavery  is  destroyed." 

1.  Cox,  of  Ohio. 

2.  Congressional    Globe,  2d  Session  37th  Congress,  Part  2,  p.  1805. 

17 


258  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  The  gentleman  from  Kentucky  says  he  has  a  niche  for 
Abraham  Lincoln.  Where  is  it  ?"  and  Lovejoy  turned  to 
Crittenden,  who  raised  his  hand  and  pointed  upwards, 
whereupon  Lovejoy  resuming  said: 

"  He  points  towards  Heaven.  But,  sir,  should  the  President  follow 
the  counsels  of  that  gentleman,  and  become  the  defender  and  perpetuator 
of  human  slavery,  he  should  point  downward  to  some  dungeon  in  the 
temple  of  Moloch,  who  feeds  on  human  blood,  and  is  surrounded  with 
fires,  where  are  forged  manacles  and  chains  for  human  limbs;  in  the 
•crypts  and  recesses  of  whose  temple  woman  is  scourged,  and  man  tor 
tured,  and  outside  the  walls  are  lying  dogs  gorged  with  human  flesh,  as 
Byron  describes  them,  stretched  around  Stamboul.  That  is  a  suitable 
place  for  the  statue  of  one  who  would  defend  and  perpetuate  human 
slavery.1 

"I,  too,  have  a  niche  for  Abraham  Lincoln,  but  it  is  in  freedom's 
holy  fane,  and  not  in  the  blood-besmeared  temple  of  human  bondage; 
not  surrounded  by  slaves,  fetters,  and  chains,  but  with  the  symbols  of 
freedom;  not  dark  with  bondage,  but  radiant  with  the  light  of  liberty. 
In  that  niche  he  shall  stand  proudly,  nobly,  gloriously,  with  shattered 
fetters,  and  broken  chains,  and  slave  whips  at  his  feet.  If  Abraham 
Lincoln  pursues  the  path  evidently  pointed  out  for  him  in  the  provi 
dence  of  God,  as  I  believe  he  will,  then  he  will  occupy  the  proud  posi 
tion  I  have  indicated.  That  is  a  fame  worth  living  for;  ay,  more,  that  is 
a  fame  worth  dying  for,  though  that  death  led  through  the  blood  of 
Gethsemane,  and  the  agony  of  the  accursed  tree.  That  is  a  fame  which 
has  glory,  and  honor,  and  immortality,  and  eternal  life.  Let  Abraham 
Lincoln  make  himself ,  as  I  trust  he  will,  the  emancipator,  the  liberator, 
as  he  has  the  opportunity  of  doing,  and  his  name  shall  not  only  be  en 
rolled  in  this  earthly  temple,  but  it  will  be  traced  on  the  living  stones 
of  the  temple  which  rears  itself  amidst  the  thrones  and  hierarchies  of 
heaven,  whose  top-stone  is  to  be  brought  in  with  shouting  of  '  Grace, 
grace  unto  it.'  " 

Such  were  the  appeals  addressed  to  the  President.  One 
party  promised  him  a  niche  beside  Washington,  if  he  would 
not  issue  the  proclamation,  and  the  other  that  "  his  name 
should  be  enrolled  in  heaven,"  among  the  benefactors  of  the 
world,  if  he  would  issue  it. 

To  his  personal  friends  of  the  Illinois  delegation  in  Con 
gress,  who  conferred  with  him  on  the  subject,  he  said  that 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  37th  Congress,  Part  2,  p.  1818. 

2.  Congressional  Globe,  3d  Session  37th  Congress,  Part  2,  p.  1818. 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.  259 

in  his  letter  to  Greeley,  he  meant  that  he  would  proclaim 
freedom  to  the  slaves,  just  as  soon  as  he  felt  assured  he 
could  do  it  effectively  and  that  the  people  would  sustain 
him,  and  when  he  felt  sure  that  he  would  strengthen  the 
Union  cause  thereby. 

On  the  1 3th  of  September,  a  delegation  of  the  clergy  of 
nearly  all  the  religious  organizations  of  Chicago  waited  upon 
him  at  the  Executive  Mansion,  and  presented  a  memorial 
urging  immediate  and  universal  emancipation.  For  the 
purpose  of  drawing  out  their  views,  in  accordance  with  his 
old  practice  as  a  lawyer,  he  started  various  objections  to  the 
policy  they  urged,  he  himself  stating  the  arguments 
against  emancipation  by  proclamation,  a  rough  draft  of 
which  he  had  already  made.  This  he  did  to  see  what  answer 
they  would  make  to  these  objections.  After  a  free  and  full 
discussion,  he  said: 

"  I  am  approached  with  the  most  opposite  opinions  and  advice,  and 
by  religious  men  who  are  certain  they  represent  the  Divine  Will.  *  *  * 
I  hope  it  will  not  be  irreverent  in  me  to  say,  that  if  it  be  probable  that 
God  would  reveal  his  will  to  others,  on  a  point  so  connected  with  my 
duty,  it  might  be  supposed  he  would  reveal  it  directly  to  me.  *  *  * 
If  I  can  learn  His  will,  I  will  do  it.  These,  however,  are  not  the  days 
of  miracles,  and  I  suppose  I  am  not  to  expect  a  direct  revelation.  I  must 
study  the  plain  physical  facts  of  the  case,  and  learn  what  appears  to  be 
wise  and  right.  *  *  *  Do  not  misunderstand  me,  because  I  have 
mentioned  these  objections.  They  indicate  the  difficulties  which  have 
thus  far  prevented  my  action  in  some  such  way  as  you  desire.  I  have 
not  decided  against  a  proclamation  of  emancipation,  but  hold  the  matter 
in  advisement.  The  subject  is  in  my  mind  by  day  and  by  night.  What 
ever  shall  appear  to  be  God's  will  I  will  do."  l 

What  were  the  feelings  of  the  negroes  during  these  days 
of  suspense  ?  They  knew,  many  of  them,  and  this  knowledge 
was  most  widely  and  mysteriously  spread  about,  that  their 
case  was  being  tried  in  the  mind  of  the  President.  Long 
had  they  prayed  and  hoped  for  freedom.  The  north  star  had 
often  guided  the  panting  fugitive  to  liberty.  They  saw 
armies  come  forth  from  the  North  and  fight  their  masters. 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  231. 


260  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  starry  flag  they  now  hoped  was  to  be  the  emblem  of 
their  freedom  as  well  as  that  of  the  white  man.  They  had 
welcomed  the  Union  soldiers  with  joy,  and  given  them  food, 
and  guidance,  and  aid,  to  the  extent  of  their  limited  and 
humble  means.  The  hundreds  of  thousands  of  these  slaves, 
from  the  Shenandoah  and  the  Arkansas,  to  the  rice  swamps 
of  the  Carolinas  and  the  cane  brakes  of  Louisiana,  believed 
their  day  of  deliverance  was  at  hand.  In  the  corn  and  sugar 
fields,  in  their  cabins,  and  the  fastnesses  of  swamps  and 
forests,  the  negro  prayed  that  u  Massa  Linkum  and  liberty  " 
would  come.  Their  hopes  and  prayers  were  happily 
expressed  by  the  poet  Whittier  : 

"  We  pray  de  Lord  ;  he  gib  us  signs 

Dat  some  day  we  be  free  ; 
De  Norf  wind  tell  it  to  de  pines, 
De  wild  duck  to  de  sea. 

"  We  tink  it  when  de  church  bell  ring, 

We  dream  it  in  de  dream  ; 
De  rice  bird  mean  it  when  he  sing, 
De  eagle  when  he  scream. 

"  De  yam  will  grow,  de  cotton  blow, 

We'll  hab  de  rice  and  corn  ; 
Oh  nebber  you  fear  if  nebber  you  hear 

De  driver  blow  his  horn  ! 

*•  *  * 

"  Sing  on,  poor  heart  !  your  chant  shall  be 

Our  sign  of  blight  or  bloom — 
The  vala-song  of  liberty, 

Or  death-rune  of  our  doom." 

With  these  considerations  and  under  these  influences,  as 
early  as  July,  the  President,  without  consulting  the  Cabinet, 
made  a  draft  of  the  proclamation.  In  August,  he  called  a 
special  meeting  of  his  Cabinet,  and  said  to  them  that  he  had 
resolved  to  issue  the  proclamation,  that  he  had  called  them 
together,  not  to  ask  their  advice,  but  to  lay  the  matter  before 
them,  and  he  would  be  glad  of  any  suggestions  after  they 
had  heard  the  paper  read.  After  it  had  been  read,  there  was 
some  discussion.  Mr.  Blair  deprecated  the  policy,  fearing  it 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.  26 1 

would  cause  the  loss  of  the  approaching  fall  elections.  But 
this  had  been  considered  by  the  President,  and  it  did  not  at 
all  shake  his  purpose.  Mr.  Seward  then  said:  "  Mr.  Presi 
dent,  I  approve  of  the  proclamation,  but  I  question  the 
expediency  of  its  issue  at  this  juncture.  The  depression  of 
the  public  mind  consequent  upon  our  repeated  reverses  is  so 
great,  that  I  fear  the  effect  of  so  important  a  step.  It  may 
be  viewed  as  the  last  measure  of  an  exhausted  government — 
a  cry  for  help  ;  the  government  stretching  forth  its  hands  to 
Ethiopia,  instead  of  Ethiopia  stretching  forth  her  hands  to 
the  government.  Now,  while  I  approve  the  measure,  I  sug 
gest,  sir,  that  you  postpone  its  issue  until  you  can  give  it  to 
the  country  supported  by  military  success,  instead  of  issuing 
it,  as  would  be  the  case  now,  upon  the  great  disasters  of 
war."  Mr.  Lincoln  was  impressed  by  these  considerations, 
.and  resolved  to  delay  the  issuing  of  the  proclamation  for  the 
time.  These  events  had  been  occurring  in  the  darkest  days 
of  the  summer  of  1862,  made  gloomy  by  the  disastrous  cam 
paigns  of  McClellan  and  Pope. 

Meanwhile  General  Lee  was  marching  northwards 
towards  Pennsylvania,  and  now  the  President,  with  that 
tinge  of  superstition  which  ran  through  his  character, 
•"  made,"  as  he  said,  "a  solemn  vow  to  God  that  if  Lee  was 
-driven  back  he  would  issue  the  proclamation."  1  Then  came 

1.  The  following  interesting  account  of  the  proclamation  Is  from  Carpenter's 
"  Six  Months  in  the  White  House."  "  It  had  got  to  be,"  said  he,  "  midsummer,  1862. 
Things  had  gone  on  from  bad  to  worse,  until  I  felt  that  we  had  reached  the  end  of  our 
rope  on  the  plan  of  operations  we  had  been  pursuing  ;  that  we  had  about  played 
our  last  card,  and  must  change  our  tactics,  or  lose  the  game !  I  now  determined 
upon  the  adoption  of  the  emancipation  policy;  and,  without  consultation  with,  or  the 
knowledge  of  the  Cabinet,  I  prepared  the  original  draft  of  the  proclamation,  and,  after 
much  anxious  thought,  called  a  Cabinet  meeting  upon  the  subject.  This  was  the  last 
of  July,  or  the  first  part  of  the  month  of  August,  1862."  (The  exact  date  he  did  not 
remember.)  "  This  Cabinet  meeting  took  place,  I  think,  upon  a  Saturday.  All  were 
present,  excepting  Mr.  Blair,  the  Postmaster-General,  who  was  absent  at  the  opening 
of  the  discussion,  but  came  in  subsequently.  I  said  to  the  Cabinet  that  I  had 
resolved  upon  this  step,  and  had  not  called  them  together  to  ask  their  advice,  but 
to  lay  the  subject-matter  of  a  proclamation  before  them;  suggestions  as  to  which 
would  be  in  order,  after  they  had  heard  it  read.  Mr.  Lovejoy,"  said  he,  "was  in  error 
when  he  Informed  you  that  it  excited  no  comment,  excepting  on  the  part  of  Secretary 
Seward.  Various  suggestions  were  offered.  Secretary  Chase  wished  the  language 
.stronger  in  reference  to  the  arming  of  the  blacks.  Mr.  Blair,  after  he  came  In,  dep- 


262  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

news  of  the  battle  of  Antietam,  fought  on  the  iyth  of  Sep 
tember.  "I  was,"  said  Lincoln,  "when  news  of  the  battle 
came,  staying  at  the  Soldiers'  Home.  Here  I  finished  writ 
ing  the  second  draft.  I  came  to  Washington  on  Saturday, 
called  the  Cabinet  together  to  hear  it,  and  it  was  published 
on  the  following  Monday,  the  226.  of  September,  1862."  !  It 

recated  the  policy,  on  the  ground  that  it  would  cost  the  administration  the  fall 
elections.  Nothing,  however,  was  offered  that  I  had  not  already  fully  anticipated  and 
settled  in  my  own  mind,  until  Secretary  Seward  spoke.  He  said  in  substance:  'Mr. 
President,  I  approve  of  the  proclamation,  but  I  question  the  expediency  of  its  issue  at 
this  juncture.  The  depression  of  the  public  mind,  consequent  upon  our  repeated 
reverses,  is  so  great  that  I  fear  the  effect  of  so  important  a  step.  It  maybe  viewed  as 
the  last  measure  of  an  exhausted  government,  a  cry  for  help ;  the  government  stretch 
ing  forth  its  hands  to  Ethiopia,  instead  of  Ethiopia  stretching  forth  her  hands  to  the 
government.'  His  idea,"  said  the  President,  "was  that  it  would  be  considered 
our  last  shriek,  on  the  retreat."  (This  was  his  precise  expression.)  " '  Now,'  contin 
ued  Mr.  Seward,  '  while  I  approve  the  measure,  I  suggest,  sir,  that  you  postpone 
its  issue,  until  you  can  give  it  to  the  country  supported  by  military  success,  instead  of 
Issuing  It,  as  would  be  the  case  now,  upon  the  greatest  disasters  of  the  war! '  "  Mr. 
Lincoln  continued:  "The  wisdom  of  the  view  of  the  Secretary  of  State  struck 
me  with  very  great  force.  It  was  an  aspect  of  the  case  that,  In  all  my  thought  upon 
the  subject,  I  had  entirely  overlooked.  The  result  was  that  I  put  the  draft  of 
the  proclamation  aside,  as  you  do  your  sketch  for  a  picture,  waiting  for  a  victory. 
From  time  to  time  I  added  or  changed  a  line,  touching  It  up  here  and  there,  anxiously 
waiting  the  progress  of  events.  Well,  the  next  news  we  had  was  of  Pope's  disaster  at 
Bull  Run.  Things  looked  darker  than  ever.  Finally,  came  the  week  of  the  battle  of 
Antietam.  I  determined  to  wait  no  longer.  The  news  came,  I  think,  on  Wednesday, 
that  the  advantage  was  on  our  side.  I  was  then  staying  at  the  Soldiers'  Home  (three 
miles  out  of  Washington).  Here  I  finished  writing  the  second  draft  of  the  preliminary 
proclamation;  came  up  on  Saturday;  called  the  Cabinet  together  to  hear  it,  and  it  was 
published  the  following  Monday." 

At  the  final  meeting  of  September  20th,  another  interesting  incident  occurred  in 
connection  with  Secretary  Seward.  The  President  had  written  the  important  part  of 
the  proclamation  in  these  words  : — 

"  That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  sixty-three,  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within  any  state  or  designated  part 
of  a  state,  the  people  whereof  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States, 
shall  be  then,  thenceforward,  and  forever  FREE;  and  the  Executive  Government 
of  the  United  States,  including  the  military  and  naval  authority  thereof,  will  recog 
nize  the  freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  repress  such  persons,  or 
any  of  them,  in  any  efforts  they  may  make  for  their  actual  freedom."  "  When  I 
finished  reading  this  paragraph,"  resumed  Mr.  Lincoln,  "Mr.  Seward  stopped  me, 
and  said, k  I  think,  Mr.  President,  that  you  should  insert  after  the  word  "recognize," 
"and  maintain."  '  I  replied  that  I  had  already  fully  considered  the  import  of  that 
expression  In  this  connection,  but  I  had  not  introduced  it,  because  it  was  not  my  way 
to  promise  what  I  was  not  entirely  sure  that  I  could  perform,  and  I  was  not  prepared  to 
eay  that  I  thought  we  were  exactly  able  to  '  maintain  '  this.'' 

"But,"  said  he,  '•  Seward  Insisted  that  we  ought  to  take  this  ground;  and  the 
words  finally  went  in! " 

1.  Carpenter's  Six  Months  in  the  White  House,  pp.  21-23. 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.  263 

was  the  act  of  the  President  alone.  It  exhibited  far-seeing 
sagacity,  courage,  independence,  and  statesmanship.  The 
words  "and  maintain,"  after  "recognize,"  were  added  at 
the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Seward,  and  Secretary  Chase  wrote 
the  concluding  paragraph  in  the  final  proclamation  :  "  And 
upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice,  war 
ranted  by  the  Constitution  upon  military  necessity,  I  invoke 
the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind,  and  the  gracious 
favor  of  Almighty  God."  In  this  paragraph  the  words 
"  upon  military  necessity,"  were  inserted  by  the  President.1 

1.  The  proclamation  of  September  22,  1862,  is  in  these  words: 
I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States  of  America,  and  Com- 
mander-in-Chlef  of  the  army  and  navy  thereof,  do  hereby  proclaim  and  declare  that 
hereafter,  as  heretofore,  the  war  will  be  prosecuted  for  the  object  of  practically 
restoring  the  constitutional  relations  between  the  United  States  and  each  of  the  states 
and  the  people  thereof,  in  which  states  that  relation  is  or  may  be  suspended  or  dis 
turbed. 

That  it  is  my  purpose,  upon  the  next  meeting  of  Congress,  to  again  recommend 
the  adoption  of  a  practical  measure  tendering  pecuniary  aid  to  the  free  acceptance  or 
rejection  of  all  slave  states,  so  called,  the  people  whereof  may  not  then  be  in  rebellion 
against  the  United  States,  and  which  states  may  then  have  voluntarily  adopted,  or 
thereafter  may  voluntarily  adopt,  immediate  or  gradual  abolishment  of  slavery  within 
their  respective  limits;  and  that  the  effort  to  colonize  persons  of  African  descent  with 
their  consent  upon  this  continent  or  elsewhere,  with  the  previously  obtained  consent 
of  the  governments  existing  there,  will  be  continued. 

That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hun 
dred  and  sixty-three,  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within  any  state  or  designated  part  of 
a  state,  the  people  whei'eof  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  shall 
be  then,  thenceforward,  and  forever  free;  and  the  Executive  government  of  the 
United  States,  including  the  military  and  naval  authority  thereof,  will  recognize  and 
maintain  the  freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  repress  such  per 
sons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts  they  may  make  for  their  actual  freedom. 

That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January  aforesaid,  by  proclamation, 
designate  the  states  and  parts  of  states,  if  any,  in  which  the  people  thereof  respec 
tively,  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States;  and  the  fact  that  any 
state,  or  the  people  thereof,  shall  on  that  day  be,  in  good  faith,  represented  in  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  by  members  chosen  thereto  at  elections  wherein  a 
majority  of  the  qualified  voters  of  such  state  shall  have  participated,  shall,  in  the 
absence  of  strong  countervailing  testimony,  be  deemed  conclusive  evidence  that  such 
state,  and  the  people  thereof,  are  not  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States. 

That  attention  is  hereby  called  to  an  act  of  Congress  entitled  "  An  act  to  make 
an  additional  article  of  war,"  approved  March  13,  1862,  and  which  act  is  in  the  words 
and  figures  following: 

"Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States  of 
America  in  Congress  assembled,  That  hereafter  the  following  shall  be  promulgated  as 
an  additional  article  of  war,  for  the  government  of  the  army  of  the  United  States,  and 
shall  be  obeyed  and  observed  as  such. 

"  ARTICLE  — .  All  officers  or  persons  in  the  military  or  naval  service  of  the  United 
States  are  prohibited  from  employing  any  of  the  forces  under  their  respective  com 
mands  for  the  purpose  of  returning  fugitives  from  service  or  labor  who  may  have 


264 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


The  final  proclamation  was  issued  on  the  ist  of  January, 
1863.  In  obedience  to  an  American  custom,  the  President 
had  been  receiving  calls  on  that  New  Year's  day,  and  for 

escaped  from  any  persons  to  whom  such  service  or  labor  Is  claimed  to  be  due,  and  any 
officer  who  shall  be  found  guilty  by  a  court-martial  of  violating  this  article  shall  be 
dismissed  from  the  service. 

"SEC.  2.  And  be  it  further  enacted.  That  this  act  shall  take  effect  from  and  after 
its  passage." 

Also  to  the  ninth  and  tenth  sections  of  an  act  entitled  "An  act  to  suppress  insur 
rection,  to  punish  treason  and  rebellion,  to  seize  and  confiscate  property  of  rebels, 
and  for  other  purposes,"  approved  July  17,  1862,  and  which  sections  are  in  the  words 
and  figures  following: 

"  SEC.  9.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  all  slaves  of  persons  who  shall  hereafter 
be  engaged  in  rebellion  against  the  government  of  the  United  States  or  who  shall  in 
any  way  give  aid  or  comfort  thereto,  escaping  from  such  persons  and  taking  refuge 
within  the  lines  of  the  army;  and  all  slaves  captured  from  such  persons  or  deserted 
by  them,  and  coming  under  the  control  of  the  government  of  the  United  States;  and 
all  slaves  of  such  persons  found  on  [or]  being  within  any  place  occupied  by  rebel 
forces,  and  afterwards  occupied  by  the  forces  of  the  United  States,  shall  be  deemed 
captives  of  war,  and  shall  be  forever  free  of  their  servitude,  and  not  again  held  as 
slaves. 

"  SEC.  10.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  no  slave,  escaping  into  any  state,  ter 
ritory,  or  the  District  of  Columbia,  from  any  other  state,  shall  be  delivered  up,  or  in 
any  way  impeded  or  hindered  of  his  liberty,  except  for  crime,  or  some  offence  against 
the  laws,  unless  the  person  claiming  said  fugitive  shall  first  make  oath  that  the  person 
to  whom  the  labor  or  service  of  such  fugitive  is  alleged  to  be  due  is  his  lawful  owner, 
and  has  not  borne  arms  against  the  United  States  in  the  present  rebellion,  nor  in  any 
way  given  aid  and  comfort  thereto;  and  no  person  engaged  in  the  military  or  naval  ser 
vice  of  the  United  States  shall,  under  any  pretence  whatever,  assume  to  decide  on  the 
validity  of  the  claim  of  any  person  to  the  service  or  labor  of  any  other  person,  or  sur 
render  up  any  such  person  to  the  claimant,  on  pain  of  being  dismissed  from  the  ser 
vice." 

And  I  do  hereby  enjoin  upon  and  order  all  persons  engaged  in  the  military  and 
naval  service  of  the  United  States  to  observe,  obey,  and  enforce,  within  their  respec 
tive  spheres  of  service,  the  act  and  sections  above  recited. 

And  the  Executive  will  in  due  time  recommend  that  all  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States  who  shall  have  remained  loyal  thereto  throughout  the  rebellion,  shall  (upon  the 
restoration  of  the  constitutional  relation  between  the  United  States  and  their  respec 
tive  states  and  people,  if  that  relation  shall  have  been  suspended  or  disturbed)  be 
compensated  for  all  losses  by  acts  of  the  United  States,  including  the  loss  of  slaves. 

In  witness  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand,  and  caused  the  seal  of  the 
United  States  to  be  afflxed. 

Done  at  the  city  of  Washington  this  twenty-second  day  of  September,  in  the  year 
of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-two,  and  of  the  Independence  of 
the  United  States  the  eighty-seventh.  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

By  the  President:  WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State. 

The  final  proclamation  of  January  1,  1863,  Is  as  follows  : 

WHEREAS,  on  the  twenty-second  day  of  September,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-two,  a  proclamation  was  issued  by  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  containing,  among  other  things,  the  following,  to-wit: 

"That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  sixty-three,  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within  any  state  or  designated  part 
of  a  state,  the  people  whereof  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States, 
shall  be  then,  thenceforward,  and  forever,  free;  and  the  Executive  government  of 
the  United  States,  including  the  military  and  naval  authority  thereof,  will  recognize 
and  maintain  the  freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  repress  such 
persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts  they  may  make  for  their  actual  freedom. 

"That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January  aforesaid,  by  proclamation, 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.  265 

•hours  shaking  hands.  As  the  paper  was  brought  to  him  by 
the  Secretary  of  State  to  be  signed,  he  said  :  "  Mr.  Seward,  I 
have  been  shaking  hands  all  day,  and  my  right  hand  is 
almost  paralyzed.  If  my  name  ever  gets  into  history,  it  will 
be  for  this  act,  and  my  whole  soul  is  in  it.  If  my  hand 
trembles  when  I  sign  the  proclamation  those  who  examine 

designate  the  states  and  parts  of  states,  If  any,  In  which  the  people  thereof, 
respectively,  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States;  and  the  fact  that 
any  state,  or  the  people  thereof,  shall  on  that  day  be  In  good  faith  represented  in  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States,  by  members  chosen  thereto  at  elections  wherein  a 
majority  of  the  qualified  voters  of  such  states  shall  have  participated,  shall,  in  the 
absence  of  strong  countervailing  testimony,  be  deemed  conclusive  evidence  that  such 
state,  and  the  people  thereof,  are  not  then  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States." 

Now,  therefore,  I,  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  President  of  the  United  States,  by  virtue 
of  the  power  in  me  vested  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the 
United  States,  in  time  of  actual  armed  rebellion  against  the  authority  and  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States,  and  as  a  fit  and  necessary  war  measure  for  suppressing 
said  rebellion,  do,  on  this  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  and  in  accordance  with  my  purpose  so  to  do,  publicly 
proclaimed  for  the  full  period  of  one  hundred  days  from  the  day  first  above  mentioned, 
order  and  designate  as  the  states  and  parts  of  states  wherein  the  people  thereof, 
respectively,  are  this  day  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  the  following,  to- 
wit: 

Arkansas,  Texas,  Louisiana,  (except  the  parishes  of  St.  Bernard,  Plaquemine, 
Jefferson,  St.  John,  St.  Charles,  St.  James,  Ascension,  Assumption,  Terre  Bonne, 
Lafourche,  St.  Mary,  St.  Martin,  and  Orleans,  including  the  city  of  New  Orleans,) 
Mississippi,  Alabama,  Florida,  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  North  Carolina,  and  Virginia, 
(except  the  forty-eight  counties  designated  as  West  Virginia,  and  also  the  counties  of 
Berkeley,  Accomac,  Northampton,  Elizabeth  City,  York,  Princess  Anne,  and  Norfolk, 
including  the  cities  of  Norfolk  and  Portsmouth,)  and  which  excepted  parts  are  for  the 
present  left  precisely  as  if  this  proclamation  were  not  issued. 

And  by  virtue  of  the  power  and  for  the  purpose  aforesaid,  I  do  order  and  declare 
that  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within  said  designated  states  and  parts  of  states  are, 
and  henceforward  shall  be,  free;  and  that  the  Executive  government  of  the  United 
States,  including  the  military  and  naval  authorities  thereof,  will  recognize  and  main 
tain  the  freedom  of  said  persons. 

And  I  hereby  enjoin  upon  the  people  so  declared  to  be  free  to  abstain  from  all 
violence,  unless  in  necessary  self-defence;  and  I  recommend  to  them  that,  in  all  cases 
when  allowed,  they  labor  faithfully  for  reasonable  wages. 

And  I  further  declare  and  make  known  that  such  persons,  of  suitable  condition, 
will  be  received  into  the  armed  service  of  the  United  States  to  garrison  forts,  posi 
tions,  stations,  and  other  places,  and  to  man  vessels  of  all  sorts  in  said  service. 

And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice,  warranted  by  the  Con 
stitution  upon  military  necessity,  I  invoke  the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind  and 
the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty  God. 

In  witness  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand  and  caused  the  seal  of  the 
United  States  to  be  afilxed. 

Done  at  the  city  of  Washington  this  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  and  of  the  independence  of  the  United 
States  of  America  the  eighty-seventh.  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

By  the  President:  WILLIAM  H.  SKWARD,  Secretary  of  State. 


266  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  document  hereafter,  will  say  :  '  He  hesitated.'  "  Then 
resting  his  arm  a  moment,  he  turned  to  the  table,  took  up 
the  pen,  and  slowly  and  firmly  wrote,  Abraham  Lincoln. 
He  smiled  as,  handing  the  paper  to  Mr.  Seward,  he  said  : 
"That  will  do." 

This  edict  was  the  pivotal  act  of  his  administration,  and 
may  be  justly  regarded  as  the  great  event  of  the  century. 
Before  the  sun  went  down  on  the  memorable  22d  of  Sep 
tember,  the  contents  of  this  edict  had  been  flashed  by  the 
telegraph  to  every  part  of  the  republic.  By  a  large  majority 
of  the  loyal  people  of  the  nation,  it  was  received  with  thanks 
to  its  author,  and  gratitude  to  God.  Bells  rang  out  their 
joyous  peals  over  all  New  England  and  over  New  York, 
over  the  mountains  of  Pennsylvania,  across  the  prairies  of 
the  West,  even  to  the  infant  settlements  skirting  the  base  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains.  Great  public  meetings  were  held  in 
the  cities  and  towns  ;  resolutions  of  approval  were  passed, 
and  in  thousands  of  churches  thanksgiving  was  rendered. 
In  many  places  the  soldiers  received  the  news  with  cheers, 
and  salvos  of  artillery ;  in  others,  and  especially  in  some 
parts  of  the  army  commanded  by  General  McClellan,  some 
murmurs  of  dissatisfaction  were  heard,1  but  generally  the 
intelligence  gave  gladness,  and  an  energy  and  earnestness 
before  unknown.  The  governors  of  the  loyal  states  held  a 
meeting  at  Altoona,  on  the  24th  of  September,  and  sent  an 
address  to  the  President,  saying:  "  We  hail  with  heartfelt 
gratitude  and  encouraged  hope  the  proclamation  "  2 

When  the  words  of  liberty  and  emancipation  reached  the 
negroes,  their  manhood  was  roused  and  many  thousands 
joined  the  Union  army,  so  that  before  the  close  of  the  war, 
nearly  two  hundred  thousand  were  mustered  into  the  service 
of  the  United  States.3 

1.  See  General  McClellan' s  orders. 

2.  McPherson' s  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  232. 

3.  The  original  draft  of  the  proclamation  was  offered  for  Bale  at  the  Sanitary  Fair 
held  at  Chicago,  In  the  autumn  of  1863.  It  was  purchased  by  Thomas  B.  Bryan,  Esq., 
and  by  him  presented  to  the  Chicago  Historical  Society,  in  whose  hall  it  was  burned  at 
the  time  of  the  great  fire  of  October,  1871.    The  following  letters  will  show  its 
history  : 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.  267 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  state  of  Tennessee  was  not 
included  in  the  proclamation.  It  was  omitted  in  deference 
to  the  opinions  and  wishes  of  Andrew  Johnson,  and  other 
Union  men  of  that  state. !  The  Union  men  of  Tennessee 
themselves  changed  the  constitution  of  that  state,  abolishing 
and  prohibiting  slavery. 

Congress,  on  the  i5th  of  December,  1862,  by  a  very 
large  majority,  adopted  a  resolution  sanctioning  the  edict.  * 
A  bill  was  also,  on  the  i4th  of  December,  1863,  introduced 
into  the  House,  by  a  member  from  Illinois,  prohibiting  the 
holding,  or  attempting  to  hold,  as  slaves,  any  persons  declared 
free  by  the  proclamation,  or  their  descendants. 8 

Along  the  path  of  the  once  feeble,  obscure,  and  perse 
cuted  abolitionists,  to  this  their  crowning  victory,  are  to  be 
found  the  wrecks  of  many  parties,  and  the  names  of  great 

WASHINGTON,  October  13,  1863. 

To  THK  PRESIDENT — My  Dear  Sir  :  I  take  the  liberty  of  inclosing  to  you  the  cir 
cular  of  the  Northwestern  Fair  f cr  the  Sanitary  Commission,  for  the  benefit  and  aid 
of  the  brave  and  patriotic  soldiers  of  the  Northwest.  The  ladies  engaged  in  this 
enterprise  will  feel  honored  by  your  countenance,  and  grateful  for  any  aid  it  may  be 
convenient  for  you  to  give  them. 

At  their  suggestion,  I  ask,  that  you  would  send  them  the  original  of  your  procla 
mation  of  freedom,  to  be  disposed  of  for  the  benefit  of  the  soldiers,  and  then  depos 
ited  in  the  Historical  Society  of  Chicago,  where  it  would  ever  be  regarded  as  a  relic 
of  great  interest.  This,  or  any  other  aid  it  may  be  convenient  for  you  to  render, 
would  have  peculiar  interest  as  coming  from  one  whom  the  Northwest  holds  In  the 
highest  honor  and  respect. 

Very  respectfully  yours, 

ISAAC  N.  ARNOLD. 

EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  WASHINGTON,  October  2G,  1863. 
Ladies  having  in  charge  the  Northwestern  Fair  for  the  Sanitary  Commission,  Chicago, 

Illinois  : 

According  to  the  request  made  in  your  behalf,  the  original  draft  of  the  emanci 
pation  proclamation  is  here  Inclosed.  The  formal  words  at  the  top,  and  the  conclu 
sion,  except  the  signature  you  perceive,  are  not  in  my  handwriting.  They  were  writ 
ten  at  the  State  Department,  by  whom  I  know  not.  The  printed  part  was  cut  from  a 
copy  of  the  preliminary  proclamation,  and  pasted  on  merely  to  save  writing.  I  had 
some  desire  to  retain  the  paper  ;  but  if  it  shall  contribute  to  the  relief  or  comfort  of  the 
soldiers,  that  will  be  better. 

Your  ob't  serv't,  A.  LINCOLN. 

1.  Such  was  the  statement  of  the  President  to  the  author. 

2.  Congressional  Globe,  December  15,  1862.    Also  McPherson's  History  of  the- 
Rebellion,  p.  229. 

3.  Congressional  Globe,  1st  Session  38th  Congress,  part  1,  p.  20.     Also  McPher 
son's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  pp.  229,  230. 


268  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

men  who  had  fallen  by  placing  themselves  in  the  way  of  this 
great  reform.  Liberty  and  justice  are  mighty  things  to 
conjure  with,  and  vain  is  the  power  of  man  when  he  tries  to 
stay  their  advance.  The  timid  and  over-cautious  were 
startled  by  the  boldness  and  courage  of  this  act  of  the  Presi 
dent,  and  his  opponents,  and  especially  those  who  sympa 
thized  with  the  rebels,  hoped  to  make  it  the  means  of  the 
defeat  and  overthrow  of  his  administration.  They  did  not 
realize  or  appreciate  the  strength  of  a  good  cause,  and  the 
power  of  courage  in  behalf  of  a  great  principle.  From  the 
day  of  its  promulgation  to  the  final  triumph  of  the  Union 
cause,  Lincoln  grew  stronger  and  stronger  in  the  confidence 
of  the  people,  and  the  tide  of  victory  in  the  field  set  more 
and  more  in  favor  of  the  republic. 

While  congratulations  came  pouring  in  upon  the  Presi 
dent  from  the  people  of  Great  Britain,  Lincoln  rather 
expected  that  now  the  government  of  good  old  Mother 
England  would  pat  him  on  the  head  and  express  its 
approval.  Senator  Sumner,  whose  social  relations  with 
many  English  members  of  Parliament  had  been  most 
friendly  and  cordial,  said  to  the  President :  "  The  British 
government  cannot  fail  to  hail  your  proclamation  with  fra 
ternal  congratulations.  Great  Britain,  whose  poets  and 
whose  orators  have  long  boasted  that 

'Slaves  cannot  breathe  in  England,' 

will  welcome  the  edict  of  freedom  with  expressions  of 
approval  and  good  will  ;  "  yet,  when  the  proclamation 
reached  London,  Lord  John  Russell,  in  a  dispatch  to  the 
British  minister  at  Washington,  sneered  at  the  paper  "  as  a 
measure  of  a  very  questionable  kind,"  "  an  act  of  vengeance 
on  the  slave  owner."  "  It  professes,"  said  he,  with  cynical 
ill-nature,  "  it  does  no  more  than  profess,  to  emancipate 
slaves,  where  the  United  States  authorities  cannot  make 
emancipation  a  reality,  but  emancipates  no  one  where  the 
decree  can  be  carried  into  effect."1  Yet,  without  the  good 

1.  Memorial  Address  of  George  Bancroft,  on  Lincoln,  pp.  30,  31. 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.  269 

wishes  of  his  lordship,  or  encouragement  from  the  English 
government,  the  United  States  did  make  emancipation  event 
ually  a  reality,  and  Lord  Russell  lived  to  see  the  decree  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  carried  into  effect  to  the  extent  of  freeing  every 
slave  in  the  republic.  But  for  this  result  no  thanks  to  him 
or  to  the  government  of  which  he  was  the  organ. 

Was  this  proclamation  valid,  and  effectual  in  law  to  free 
the  negroes  ?  This  question  is  not  now,  since  the  amend 
ments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  of  the 
states,  abolishing  and  prohibiting  slavery,  of  very  great 
practical  importance.  It  did  result,  practically,  in  the 
destruction  of  slavery,  and  under  its  operation,  as  carried 
into  effect  by  the  President  and  military  and  naval  authori 
ties  of  the  United  States,  slavery  ceased.  Was  it  a  legal  and 
valid  edict  under  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  war  ? 

The  government  of  the  United  States  possessed  all  the 
powers  with  reference  to  the  Confederates  in  rebellion,  and 
who  were  making  war  upon  the  republic,  which  any  nation, 
has  with  relation  to  its  enemies  in  war.  It  had  the  clear 
right  to  treat  them  as  public  enemies,  according  to  the  laws 
of  war.  The  emancipation  of  an  enemy's  slaves  is  a  bellig 
erent  right,  and  it  belongs  exclusively  to  the  President,  as 
Commander  in  Chief,  to  judge  whether  he  will  exercise  this 
right.  The  exercise  of  the  tremendous  power  of  enfranchis 
ing  the  slaves,  and  thereby  weakening  the  public  enemy  and 
strengthening  the  government,  is  in  accordance  with  the 
law  of  nations,  and  with  the  practice  of  civilized  belligerents 
in  modern  times. 

The  able  and  learned  lawyer  and  publicist,  Alexander  H. 
Stephens,  in  the  passage  already  quoted,  took  it  for  granted, 
that  this  power  would  be  exercised  by  the  Federal  Govern 
ment,  and  before  hostilities  commenced  he  warned  the  peo 
ple  of  Georgia  against  it.  He  knew  that  in  May,  1836,  that 
learned  jurist  and  statesman,  John  Quincy  Adams,  had. 
declared  on  the  floor  of  Congress  that  the  President  could 
legally  exercise  this  power.  Mr.  Adams  had  concluded  an 
exhaustive  discussion  of  the  question,  by  saying:  "I  lay 


270  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

this  down  as  the  law  of  nations,  that  in  case  of  war,  the 
President  of  the  United  States  and  the  commander  of  the 
army  has  power  to  order  the  universal  emancipation  of  the 
slaves."  l 

The  right  was  claimed  and  exercised  by  Great  Britain, 
both  in  the  war  of  the  revolution  and  the  war  of  1812.  Sir 
Henry  Clinton,  Lord  Dunmore,  and  Lord  Cornwallis  all 
issued  proclamations  promising  liberty  to  the  slaves  of  the 
colonies.  Jefferson  says,  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Gordon,  that 
under  Lord  Cornwallis2  Virginia  lost  about  thirty  thousand 
slaves.  Speaking  of  the  injury  to  himself,  he  says:  "  He 
(Cornwallis)  carried  off  about  thirty  slaves."  "  Had  this 
been  done  to  give  them  freedom,  he  would  have  done 
right."  The  English  commanders  in  the  war  of  1812 
invited,  by  proclamation,  the  slaves  to  join  them,  promising 
them  freedom.  The  slaves  who  joined  them  were  liberated 
and  carried  away.  The  United  States,  when  peace  was 
declared,  demanded  indemnity.  The  question  was  referred 
to  the  Emperor  of  Russia  as  umpire,  who  decided  that 
indemnity  should  be  paid  to  the  extent  to  which  payment 
had  been  stipulated  in  the  treaty  of  peace,  but  for  such  as 
were  not  included  in  the  treaty  no  payment  should  be  made. 

Justice  Miller,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  says:  "  In  that  struggle  (to  subdue  the  rebellion) 
slavery  as  a  legalized  social  institution  perished."  3  *  * 
"The  proclamation  of  President  Lincoln  expressed  an 
accomplished  fact  as  to  a  large  portion  of  the  insurrec 
tionary  districts,  when  he  declared  slavery  abolished."  In 
the  state  of  Louisiana  it  has  been  judicially  decided  that  the 
sale  of  a  slave  after  the  proclamation  of  emancipation  was 
void.4  In  the  state  of  Texas  it  was  held  by  the  Supreme 
Court,  in  1868,  that  the  effect  of  the  President's  proclama- 

1.  See  Whiting's  War  Powers.    Mr.  Adams's  speech,  pp.  77-79.    In  that  able  work 
of  Mr.  Whiting  will  be  found  a  full  discussion  of  the  subject. 

•2.  Whiting's  War  Powers,  p.  69. 

3.  The  Slaughter  House  Cases,  16  Wallace  Reports,  p.  68. 

4.  See  20th  Louisiana  Rep.,  p.  199. 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION.  271 

tion  of  January  i,  1863,  was  to  liberate  the  slaves  under  the 
national  control,  that  all  slaves  became  free  as  fast  as  the 
nation  obtained  control,  and  that,  on  the  final  surrender,  all 
slaves  embraced  in  the  terms  of  the  edict  became  free.J 
Judge  Lindsey  says:  "  The  legal  effect  of  the  proclama 
tion  was  eo  instanti  to  liberate  all  slaves  under  control  of  the 
federal  forces."  "  It  was  a  proper  measure,  and  made 
effectual  by  force  of  arms."  Chief  Justice  Chase  says: 
"  Emancipation  was  confirmed  rather  than  ordained  by  the 
amendment  prohibiting  slavery  throughout  the  Union."2 

The  proclamation  of  emancipation  did  not  change  the 
local  law  in  the  insurgent  states,  it  operated  on  the  persons 
held  as  slaves;  "  all  persons  held  as  slaves  are  and  hence 
forth  shall  be  free."  The  law  sanctioning  slavery  was  not 
necessarily  abrogated,  hence  the  necessity  for  the  amend 
ment  of  the  Constitution.3  The  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  declared  that:  "  When  the  armies  of  freedom 
found  themselves  upon  the  soil  of  slavery,  they  (and  the 
President  their  commander)  could  do  nothing  less  than  free 
the  poor  victims  whose  enforced  servitude  was  the  founda 
tion  of  the  quarrel."*  Let  then  no  impious  hand  seek  to 
{ear  from  the  brow  of  Lincoln  the  crown  so  justly  his  due, 
as  the  emancipator  of  the  negro  race  in  America. 

1.  See  31st  Texas  Rep.,  p.  504-531,  551,  for  able  opinions  of  the  judges.    See  also 
44th  Alabama  Rep.,  p.  71. 

2.  Chief  Justice  Chase,  in  7  Wall.  Rep.  728. 

3.  See  also  North  American  Review,  for  December,  1880,  A.  A.  Ferris,  and  cases 
cited. 

4.  Wallace  Rep.  16,  p.  68. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

MILITARY  OPERATIONS  IN  1861-1862. 

BATTLES  IN  THE  WEST. —  FROM  BELMONT  TO  CORINTH. —  SUCCESSES 
IN  THE  SOUTH. —  FARRAGUT  CAPTURES  NEW  ORLEANS. —  THE. 
MONITOR. —  MCCLELLAN  AND  THE  PRESIDENT. —  POPE'S  CAM 
PAIGN. —  MCCLELLAN  RE-INSTATED  IN  COMMAND. 

THAT  a  consecutive  narrative  might  be  given  of  the  action 
of  Congress  and  of  the  Executive,  on  the  all-important 
question  of  slavery,  up  to  the  period  of  emancipation,  mili 
tary  movements  have  been  neglected.  Everything  depended 
upon  the  success  of  the  Union  armies.  Laws  and  procla 
mations,  without  victories,  would  amount  to  little.  The 
President  realized  this,  and  on  the  threshold  of  the  war,  his 
most  anxious  thought,  and  most  difficult  problem,  was  to  find 
officers  who  could  lead  the  Union  troops  to  victory.  The 
republic  had  few  soldiers  of  experience.  Scott  and  Wool 
had  won  reputation  in  the  war  of  1812,  and  in  Mexico,  but 
were  old  for  active  service.  Military  skill  must  be  developed 
by  costly  experience.  In  his  appointments  to  high  command, 
the  President,  without  regard  to  party  or  personal  consider 
ations,  sought  for  skill  and  ability.  None  realized  more 
fully  than  he,  that  the  success  of  his  administration  depended 
upon  the  triumph  of  his  armies.  Hence,  while  he 
appointed  Fremont,  and  Hunter,  and  McDowell,  Banks,  and 
others,  from  among  his  political  and  personal  friends,  he  did 
not  hesitate  to  give  to  those  who  had  hitherto  acted  with 
the  democratic  party,  such  as  McClellan,  Halleck,  Buell, 
Grant,  and  others,  the  very  highest  positions.  The  question 

272 


MILITARY  OPERATIONS  IN  1861-1862.  273 

with  him  was — who  will  lead  our  troops  to  the  most  speedy 
and  decisive  victories  ? 

The  general  plan  of  the  war  seemed  to  be  :  first,  to 
blockade  the  entire  coast  of  the  insurgent  states  ;  second,  the 
military  occupation  of  the  border  slave  states,  so  as  to  pro 
tect  and  sustain  the  Union  men  resident  therein  ;  third,  the 
recovery  of  the  Mississippi  River  to  the  Gulf,  by  which  the 
Confederacy  would  be  divided,  and  the  great  outlet  of  the 
Northwest  to  New  Orleans  and  the  ocean  would  be  secured; 
fourth,  the  destruction  of  the  rebel  army  in  Virginia,  and  the. 
capture  of  Richmond,  the  rebel  capital.  To  accomplish 
these  purposes,  and  to  resist  their  accomplishment,  stupen 
dous  preparations  were  made  on  both  sides. 

In  the  autumn  of  1861,  General  George  B.  McClellan 
had  under  his  command,  at  Washington  and  its  vicinity,  on 
the  line  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  and  at  Fortress  Monroe,, 
more  than  two  hundred  thousand  well  armed  men.  General! 
Halleck,  who  was  in  command  in  the  West,  had  a  very  large 
army.  McClellan  was  a  skillful  organizer,  and  had  the  power 
of  making  himself  personally  popular,  but  was  slow,  very  cau 
tious,  and  was  never  ready.  With  his  magnificent  army, 
greatly  exceeding  that  which  confronted  him — he  lay  inactive- 
all  the  fall  of  1861,  and  the  winter  of  1861-2,  into  February,, 
permitting  the  Potomac  to  be  closed  by  batteries  on  the 
western  shore,  above  and  below  his  army,  and  the  rebel  flag: 
to  be  flaunted  in  his  face,  and  in  that  of  the  government,, 
from  the  Virginia  hills  overlooking  the  capital.  l 

It  was  the  era  of  brilliant  reviews  and  magnificent  mil 
itary  displays,  of  parade,  festive  parties,  and  junketings. 
The  President  was  impatient  at  this  inactivity,  and  again  and 
again  urged  action  on  the  part  of  the  General.  But  McClel 
lan,  having  in  August,  1861,  offended  General  Scott,  by 
whom  he  was  styled  "  an  ambitious  Junior,"  and  caused  the 

1.  "During  all  this  time  the  Confederate  army  lay  at  Centerville,  insolently  men 
acing  Washington.  *  *  It  never  presented  an  effective  strength  of  over  50,- 
000  men."  Webb's  Peninsular  Campaign,  p.  26. 

18 


274  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

old  veteran  to  ask  to  be  placed  on  the  retired  list,  l  was  left 
in  command.  When  urged  to  action  by  the  President,  he 
always  had  some  plausible  excuse  for  delay.  At  length  the 
patience  of  the  Executive  was  exhausted,  and,  on  the  2yth 
of  January,  1862,  he  issued  an  order  that  a  general  move 
ment  of  the  land  and  naval  forces  should  be  made,  on  the 
22d  of  February,  against  the  insurgents.  This  order  has 
been  much  criticised.  It  was  addressed  to  the  army  and 
navy  generally,  but  was  intended  especially  for  General 
McClellan  and  his  army. 

A  brief  recital  of  what  had  been  done  at  the  West  and 
•elsewhere,  will  show  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  great 
army  of  the  Potomac,  the  forces  of  the  republic  had  been 
active,  energetic,  and  generally  successful.  On  the  6th  of 
November,  1861,  General  U.  S.  Grant,  moving  from  Cairo, 
attacked  Belmont,  and  destroyed  the  military  stores  of  the 
enemy  at  that  place.  On  the  loth  of  January,  1862,  Colonel 
James  A.  Garfield  attacked  and  defeated  Humphrey  Mar 
shall,  at  Middle  Creek,  Kentucky.  On  the  i8th  of  January, 
General  George  H.  Thomas,  a  true  and  loyal  Virginian,  who, 
like  Scott,  was  faithful  to  his  flag,  gained  a  brilliant  victory 
over  the  rebel  Generals  Zollikorfer  and  Crittenden,  at  Mill 
Spring. 

The  Cumberland  and  Tennessee  rivers,  having  their 
sources  far  within  the  rebel  lines,  and  running  to  the  north 
and  west,  empty  into  the  Ohio.  To  secure  these  rivers  from 
Union  gun-boats,  the  insurgents  had  constructed  and  garri 
soned  Fort  Henry,  on  the  Tennessee,  and  Fort  Donelson,  on 
the  Cumberland.  Flag-officer  Foote,  one  of  the  most  skill 
ful  and  energetic  officers  of  the  navy,  commanded  the  Union 
fleet  on  the  Western  rivers.  Co-operating  with  General  Grant, 
they  planned  an  attack  on  Fort  Henry.  On  the  6th  of  Feb 
ruary,  Foote,  with  his  gun-boats,  cittacked  and  captured  that 
Fort — not  waiting  for  the  arrival  of  Grant,  who  was  approach 
ing.  Grant  and  Foote  then  moved  to  the  attack  of  Fort 

1.  The  Records  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion,  Series  1,  Vol.  II,  Part  3d,  Corre 
spondence,  etc.,  pp,  4,  5,  6,  etc. 


MILITARY  OPERATIONS  IN  1861-1862.  275 

Donelson.  On  the  i6th  of  February,  they  invested  the  fort. 
After  several  days  hard  fighting,  the  rebel  General  Buckner 
sent  a  flag  of  truce  to  General  Grant,  asking  a  cessation  of 
hostilities,  to  settle  terms  of  surrender.  Grant  replied:  "  No 
terms  except  unconditional  surrender  can  be  accepted.  I 
propose  to  move  immediately  on  your  works."  Buckner  did 
not  wait  the  assault,  but  surrendered  at  discretion.  This 
victory,  and  the  note  of  Grant,  gave  to  him  the  sobriquet  of 
"  Unconditional  Surrender  Grant."  Arms,  stores,  and  more 
than  twelve  thousand  prisoners  were  captured.  This  brilliant 
victory  electrified  the  country,  and  the  President,  impatient, 
and  careworn  over  the  long  and  mysterious  delay  of  the  army 
of  the  Potomac,  looked  ten  years  younger  upon  the  evening 
of  the  reception  of  the  inspiring  news. 

General  Floyd,  late  the  treacherous  Secretary  of  War 
under  Buchanan,  and  who  had  been  in  command,  was  con 
scious  that  a  man  who  had  plotted  treason  against  the 
national  government  while  in  the  Cabinet,  deserved  punish 
ment  as  a  traitor,  and  fled  at  night  before  the  surrender. 
These  substantial  victories  compelled  the  evacuation  by  the 
rebels  of  Kentucky,  and  opened  Tennessee  to  the  Union 
forces.  Bowling  Green,  called  by  the  insurgents  the  Gibral 
tar  of  Kentucky,  was,  on  the  i5th  of  February,  occupied  by 
General  Mitchell  of  the  Union  army. 

On  the  24th  of  February,  the  Union  troops  occupied 
Nashville,  the  capital  of  the  great  state  of  Tennessee,  and, 
in  March  thereafter,  Andrew  Johnson,  having  been  appointed 
provisional  governor,  arrived,  and  the  persecuted  Unionists 
of  the  state  gladly  rallied  around  him.  In  East  Tennessee 
— his  old  home — loyalty  was  general,  and  the  Union  flag 
was  hailed  with  exclamations  of  joy  and  gratitude. 

On  the  6th,  yth,  and  8th  of  March,  was  fought  the  battle 
of  Pea  Ridge,  and  General  Halleck  telegraphed  with  exulta 
tion:  "  The  Union  flag  is  floating  in  Arkansas."  On  the 
1 3th  of  March,  General  John  Pope,  of  Illinois,  moving  down 
the  west  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  compelled  the  evacuation 
of  New  Madrid,  and  then  laid  siege  to  Island  No  10,  in  the 


276  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Mississippi,  which,  on  the  yth  of  April,  he  captured,  with 
provisions,  arms,  and  military  stores. 

Thus  the  Union  forces  had  been  steadily  advancing  in 
the  valley  of  the  Mississippi.  Buell's  army  was  at  Nash 
ville,  and  the  Confederates  saw  with  dismay  Missouri,  Ken 
tucky,  Arkansas,  and  Tennessee,  wrenched  from  them,  and 
realized  that  unless  the  armies  of  Grant  and  Buell  could  be 
driven  back,  the  whole  valley  of  the  Mississippi  would  be 
lost. 

Lee  seemed  to  calculate,  with  confidence,  that  all  would 
remain  "  quiet  on  the  Potomac"  as  usual,  for  he  sent  Beau- 
regard  from  his  army  in  Virginia  to  the  West,  while  the 
rebel  forces  west  of  the  Alleghanies  were  placed  under  the 
command  of  their  ablest  general,  Albert  Sidney  Johnston. 
He  realized  the  vast,  perhaps  decisive  importance  of  the 
impending  conflict  in  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi.  In  his 
address  to  his  army,  before  the  battle  of  Shiloh,  he  said  : 
"  Remember,  soldiers,  the  fair,  broad,  abounding  lands,  the 
happy  homes,  that  will  be  desolated  by  your  defeat.  The  eyes 
and  hopes  of  eight  millions  of  people  rest  upon  you." 

On  the  6th  of  April,  the  great  armies  met  on  the  bank  of 
the  Tennessee  and  fought  the  terrible  and  bloody  battle  of 
Shiloh,  or  Pittsburgh  Landing.  General  Grant  occupied  the 
southern  bank  of  the  river.  Buell  was  approaching  from  the 
north.  It  was  the  intention  of  the  Confederates  to  surprise 
and  whip  Grant  before  Buell  could  come  to  his  support. 
Before  six  o'clock,  on  the  morning  of  April  6th,  the  rebel; 
columns  attacked  furiously,  and  rushing  on  like  a  whirlwind, 
threatened  to  drive  the  Union  troops  into  the  river.  Grant 
arrived  on  the  field  at  8  A.  M.,  and,  rallying  and  re-forming 
his  lines,  with  unflinching  determination,  continued  the  fight. 
Charge  after  charge  was  made  by  the  impetuous  and  confi 
dent  Confederates,  but  they  were  met  with  dogged  and  per 
sistent  courage.  Thus  the  fight  went  on  during  the  long 
day,  but  the  Union  troops  were  gradually  forced  back 
towards  the  river,  into  a  semi-circle,  with  the  river  in  the 
rear.  The  Union  General  Wallace,  and  the  rebel  com- 


MILITARY  OPERATIONS  IN  1861-1862.  277 

mander  Johnston,  with  many  other  brave  and  distinguished 
officers  on  both  sides,  were  killed.  The  long  dreary  day 
closed,  with  the  advantage  all  on  the  side  of  the  rebels,  and 
Beauregard  at  evening  announced  a  complete  victory.  But 
with  the  night  Buell  arrived  with  his  gallant  army,  and  the 
morrow  brought  victory  to  the  Union  arms.  Grant  had 
exhibited  those  stubborn,  resolute,  persistent  qualities,  which 
would  not  know  defeat.  With  the  fresh  troops  of  Buell 
.and  Lew  Wallace,  he  early  the  next  morning  attacked  the 
rebels,  drove  them  from  the  field,  and  pursued  them  towards 
their  intrenchments  at  Corinth. 

This,  one  of  the  most  bloody  battles  of  the  war,  was 
fought  by  troops  not  many  months  in  the  service,  but  many 
of  whom  had  been  already  often  in  battle.  It  was  a  long, 
terrible  fight,  but  when  the  sun  went  down  on  the  second 
day,  it  went  down  on  an  army  of  flying  rebels,  who  had 
gained  an  experience  of  the  courage,  persistence,  and  effi 
ciency  of  the  soldiers  of  the  West,  which  they  never  forgot. 

On  the  3oth  of  May,  the  batteries  of  General  Halleck, 
commanding  in  the  West,  opened  on  the  rebel  fortifications 
at  Corinth,  in  the  state  of  Mississippi,  and  the  rebels  were 
driven  out,  abandoning  their  fortifications  with  a  vast  quan 
tity  of  military  stores.  Such,  in  brief,  is  the  eventful  story 
of  the  armies  of  the  West,  during  the  year  1861  and  the 
-earlier  part  of  1862.  Nor  were  the  national  forces  idle  at 
the  extreme  South. 

On  the  8th  of  February,  1862,  Roanoke  Island,  on  the 
coast  of  North  Carolina,  was  captured  by  General  Burnside 
and  Admiral  Goldsborough,  with  prisoners,  arms,  and  mili 
tary  stores.  On  the  i4th  of  March,  General  Burnside  cap 
tured  Newbern.  On  the  nth  of  April,  General  David 
Hunter  captured  Fort  Pulaski,  and  on  the  25th  of  April, 
1862,  Fort  Macon  was  taken. 

New  Orleans,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  was  early 
in  the  war  an  object  of  anxious  consideration  on  the  part  of 
the  President.  Having  passed  his  life  in  the  West,  know 
ing  this  great  river  as  one  who  in  early  manhood  had  urged 


278  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

a  boat  over  its  majestic  waters,  he  had  seen  its  thousands  of 
miles  of  navigable  tributary  streams,  and  itself  from  the  Gulf 
to  the  far  North,  covered  with  steamers,  carrying  to  salt 
water  the  vast  products  of  a  delta  and  territory  more  pro 
ductive  than  that  of  the  Nile.  From  the  beginning,  he  felt 
perfectly  certain  that  the  hardy  Western  pioneers  would  "hew 
their  way  to  the  sea."  New  Orleans  had  long  been  the 
object  of  national  pride.  The  victory  of  General  Jackson 
at  that  place  had  always  been  regarded  as  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  military  achievements  on  record.  This  interesting 
city,  over  which  had  floated  the  lilies  of  France  ;  this  metro 
polis  of  the  Southwest  had  fallen  by  the  treason  of  General 
Twiggs,  an  unresisting  victim,  into  the  toils  of  the  conspira 
tors. 

In  the  autumn  of  1861,  an  expedition  under  the  command 
of  Captain  David  G.  Farragut,  and  General  B.  F.  Butler, 
was  organized  for  its  capture.  Farragut  was  a  native  of 
Tennessee,  a  hearty,  bluff,  honest,  downright  sailor,  full  of 
energy,  determination,  and  ability;  with  a  courage  and  fer 
tility  of  resources  never  surpassed.  He  was  one  of  those 
men  who  dare  everything,  and  rarely  fail.  There  is  no 
brighter  name  than  his  among  the  naval  heroes  of  the  world. 
On  the  25th  of  March,  1862,  Butler  landed  his  troops  on 
Ship  Island,  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  between  New  Orleans 
and  Mobile.  On  the  iyth  of  April,  Farragut  with  his  fleet 
arrived  in  the  vicinity  of  the  forts  which  guarded  the 
approach  to  the  city.  After  bombarding  these  forts  for 
several  days  without  reducing  them,  with  the  inspiration  of 
genius  he  determined  to  run  past  their  guns.  The  hazard 
was  fearful.  Forts  St.  Philip  and  Jackson,  on  opposite  sides 
of  the  river,  mounted  over  an  hundred  heavy  cannon; 
besides  this,  the  river  was  blocked  up  by  sunken  hulks, 
piles,  and  every  obstruction  which  could  be  devised.  In 
addition,  he  would  have  to  encounter  thirteen  gunboats, 
the  floating  ironclad  Louisiana,  and  the  ram  Manassas.  The 
authorities  at  New  Orleans  were  confident.  "  Our  only 
fear,"  said  the  city  press,  "  is  that  the  Northern  invaders 


MILITARY  OPERATIONS  IN  1861-1862.  279 

will  not  appear."  Farragut  soon  dissipated  these  fears.  On 
the  night  of  the  24th  of  April,  amidst  a  storm  of  shot  and 
shell,  the  darkness  illuminated  by  the  mingled  fires  of  ships, 
forts,  and  burning  vessels,  he  passed  Forts  Jackson  and  St. 
Philip;  he  crushed  through  all  obstructions;  he  destroyed  the 
ram  and  gunboats  which  opposed  him;  he  steamed  past  the 
batteries;  he  ascended  the  great  river,  and  laid  his  broadsides 
to  the  proud  city  of  the  Southwest. 

The  town  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  people 
surrendered,  and  the  flag  of  the  Union  floated  once  more  over 
the  Crescent  City,  never  again  to  be  removed.  For,  as  was 
grimly  said  by  a  rebel  officer  on  the  fall  of  Richmond,  "  It 
has  never  been  the  policy  of  the  Confederates  to  retake  the 
cities  and  posts  captured  by  the  Union  forces."  Baton 
Rouge,  the  capital  of  Louisiana,  was  taken  without  resistance 
on  the  yth  of  May,  Natchez  on  the  i2th,  and  for  a  time 
the  Mississippi  was  opened  as  far  up  as  Vicksburg. 

As  the  President  read  the  report  of  these  various  suc 
cesses,  he  could  not  fail  to  compare  and  to  contrast  them 
with  the  inaction  of  the  grand  army  of  the  Potomac.  Of  that 
army  great  and  sanguine  expectations  had  been  formed.  It 
was  commanded,  as  has  been  stated,  by  George  B.  McClel- 
lan,  who  at  the  time  of  his  appointment,  in  November,  1861, 
as  General  in  Chief  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  was 
less  than  thirty-six  years  of  age.  Popular  feeling,  eager  to 
welcome  victories  and  to  reward  him  with  honor,  had 
already  called  him  the  "  Young  Napoleon." 

The  army  of  the  Potomac  was  regarded  as  the  main 
army;  it  was  encamped  in  and  around  Washington,  the 
source  of  supplies;  when  there  were  not  arms  for  all,  this 
army  was  first  supplied,  and  if  there  was  a  choice,  this  body 
of  troops  had  the  preference.  It  is  not  intended  to  ques 
tion  the  patriotism  or  the  courage  of  the  General  in  Chief, 
nor  to  suggest  a  doubt  of  his  loyalty,  but  he  did  not  dis 
guise  his  hostility  to  the  radicals.  He  had  no  sympathy  for 
the  abolitionists,  and  he  let  them  know  it.  While  condemn 
ing  secession,  he  had  more  sympathy  for  slaveholders  than 


28O  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

for  slaves.  He  criticised  freely  the  radical  acts  of  Congress 
and  the  administration,  and  he  very  soon  became  the  center 
around  which  gathered  all  who  opposed  the  radical  meas 
ures  of  the  President  and  of  Congress.  They  flattered  the 
young  general,  and  suggested  to  him  that  he  could  become 
the  great  pacificator.  This  may  aid  in  explaining  his  strange 
and  mysterious  inactivity. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  on  the  27th  of  January  the 
President  issued  an  order  for  active  operations.  This  order 
contemplated  a  general  advance  in  concert  by  all  the  forces 
in  the  field.  On  the  3ist  of  January,  the  President  ordered 
an  expedition,  the  immediate  object  of  which  was  to  seize 
and  occupy  a  position  on  the  railway  southwest  of  Manassas 
Junction.  McClellan  did  not  move  until  early  in  March, 
and  then  reached  Centreville  with  his  immense  army,  to  find 
it  abandoned,  and  wooden  guns  in  position  on  the  works 
behind  which  the  rebels,  in  far  inferior  numbers,  had 
remained  all  the  autumn  and  winter  unassailed.  But  his 
words,  addressed  to  his  army  at  Fairfax  Court  House,  led 
the  country  to  hope  that  he  would  now  make  up  in  energy 
and  celerity  his  long  delay.  He  said  :  "  The  army  of  the 
Potomac  is  now  a  real  army.  Magnificent  in  material, 
admirable  in  discipline,  excellently  equipped  and  armed. 
Your  commanders  are  all  that  I  could  wish." 

Such  being  the  case,  and  with  a  force  more  than  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  strong,  carrying  three  hundred 
and  fifty  pieces  of  artillery,  a  brilliant  and  triumphant  cam 
paign  was  confidently  looked  for.  Lincoln  had  given 
McClellan  his  confidence,  and  was  very  slow  to  withdraw  it, 
for  he  was  always  noted  for  the  unflinching  fidelity  with 
which  he  stood  by  those  whom  he  trusted.  He  had  sus 
tained  this  general  against  a  very  large  majority  of  the 
earnest  Union  men  of  the  nation.  The  committee  on  the 
conduct  of  the  war  appointed  by  Congress,  the  fiery  Secre 
tary  of  War,  and  many  others,  had  chafed  and  complained 
during  all  the  winter  of  1861-62  at  McClellan's  inactivity. 
He  had  done  a  great  work  in  organizing  this  splendid  army, 


MILITARY  OPERATIONS  IN  1861-1862.  281 

but  he  could  not  be  made  to  lead  a  bold,  aggressive  cam 
paign.  Could  this  army,  on  the  day  it  struck  its  tents 
around  Washington,  have  been  transferred  to  the  command 
of  a  rapid,  indefatigable,  and  energetic  officer  like  Sheridan, 
or  to  the  hero  of  Atlanta  and  the  "  Grand  March,"  or  to 
Thomas,  or  to  the  unflinching  iron  will  of  Grant,  it  would 
have  marched  into  Richmond  long  before  McClellan  reached 
the  Chickahominy. 

Celerity  of  movement,  quick  and  rapid  blows,  were 
impossible  with  the  amount  of  impedimenta  which  hampered 
McClellan's  movements.  Washington  was  an  attractive 
place  to  the  gay  young  officers  of  this  army.  Members  of 
Congress  were  curious  to  learn  what  was  the  camp  equipage 
which  required  six  immense  four-horse  wagons  drawn  up 
before  the  door  of  the  general,  each  wagon  marked:  "  Head 
quarters  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac;"  and  when  it  was 
reported  that  Grant  had  taken  the  field  with  only  a  spare 
shirt,  a  hair  brush,  and  a  tooth  brush,  comparisons  were 
made  between  Eastern  luxury  and  Western  hardihood. 

During  this  long  inaction  on  the  Potomac,  while  the 
forces  of  the  West  were  capturing  Forts  Donelson  and 
Henry,  and  driving  the  rebels  out  of  Kentucky,  Missouri,  and 
Tennessee,  the  impatience  of  the  President  was  not  always 
suppressed.  On  one  occasion  he  said  :  "  If  General  Mc 
Clellan  does  not  want  to  use  the  army  for  some  days,  I 
should  like  to  borrow  it  and  see  if  it  cannot  be  made  to  do 
something." 

On  the  8th  of  March,  the  President  directed  that,  Wash 
ington  being  left  entirely  secure,  a  movement  should  begin 
not  later  than  the  i8th  of  March,  and  that  the  General  in 
Chief  should  be  responsible  for  its  commencement  as  early 
as  that  day.  Also  that  the  army  and  navy  should  cooperate 
in  an  immediate  effort  to  capture  the  rebel  batteries  on  the 
Potomac. !  The  army  did  not  cooperate,  and  the  batteries 
"were  not  captured. 

1  President's  War  Order  No.  3.  See  Official  Records  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion, 
;Serles  1,  Vol  II.,  p.  Ill,  p.  5S. 


282  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

On  the  1 2th  of  March,  at  a  council  of  war  held  at  Fair 
fax  Court  House,  a  majority  decided  to  proceed  against 
Richmond  by  Fortress  Monroe.  The  President  acquiesced, 
although  his  opinion  had  been  decidedly  in  favor  of  a  direct 
march  upon  Richmond.  His  acquiescence  was  upon  the  con 
dition  that  Washington  should  be  left  entirely  secure,  and 
the  remainder  of  the  force  move  down  the  Potomac  to 
Fortress  Monroe,  or  anywhere  between  Washington  and 
Fortress  Monroe,  "  or  at  all  events  to  move  at  once  in  pur 
suit  of  the  enemy  by  some  route." 

While  impatiently  following  the  slow  movements  of  Mc- 
Clellan,  the  nation  was  electrified  by  news  of  a  conflict  upon 
the  water,  between  the  iron  clad  "  Virginia  "  and  the  "  Moni 
tor,"  which  took  place  on  the  9th  of  March,  1862.  When 
Norfolk  was  shamefully  abandoned  in  the  spring  of  1861 
by  the  federal  officers,  among  other  vessels  left  in  the  hands 
of  the  enemy  was  the  "  Merrimac."  Sheathing  her  sides  with 
iron  armor,  and  changing  her  name  to  the  "  Virginia,"  on 
the  Qth  of  March  she  steamed  down  the  James,  and  attacked 
and  destroyed  the  United  States  frigates,  "  Cumberland  " 
and  "  Congress."  The  officers  of  the  "  Cumberland  "  fought 
until  the  ship  went  down  with  her  flags  still  flying.  The 
u  Minnesota,"  coming  to  the  aid  of  the  "  Cumberland,"  ran 
aground  and  lay  at  the  mercy  of  this  terrible  iron-clad  bat 
tery.  But  just  at  the  time  when  it  seemed  that  the  James, 
and  the  Potomac,  and  Washington  itself,  was  at  the  mercy 
of  this  apparently  invulnerable  ship,  there  was  seen  approach 
ing  in  the  distance,  a  low,  turtle-like  looking  nondescript, 
which,  as  she  came  nearer,  was  made  out  to  be  the  iron-clad 
"  Monitor,"  just  built  as  an  experiment  by  the  distinguished 
engineer,  Ericsson.  She  mounted  two  eleven  inch  Dahl- 
gren  guns,  carrying  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  pound 
shot.  As  compared  with  the  "  Virginia,"  she  was  a  David 
to  a  Goliath.  She  boldly  and  successfully  attacked  her 
gigantic  enemy,  thereby  saving  the  fleet,  and  perhaps  the 
capital.  Whole  broadsides  were  fired  at  the  little  "  Moni- 


MILITARY  OPERATIONS  IN   1861-1862.  283 

tor,"  with  no  more  effect  than  volleys  of  stones  would 
have  had. 

On  the  3rd  of  April,  the  President  ordered  the  Secretary 
of  War  to  direct  General  McClellan  "  to  commence  his  for 
ward  movement  from  his  new  base  at  once."  1  On  the  5th 
of  April,  General  McClellan,  when  near  Yorktown,  said  to 
the  President:  "  The  enemy  are  in  large  force  along  our 
front,  *  *  *  their  works  formidable,"  2  and  adds:  "I 
am  of  opinion  I  shall  have  to  fight  all  the  available  force  of 
the  rebels  not  far  from  here."  On  the  other  hand,  the  rebel 
General  Magruder,  in  his  report  of  July  3rd,  says  that  the 
whole  force  with  which  Yorktown  was  held,  was  eleven 
thousand,  and  that  a  portion  of  his  line  was  held  by  five 
thousand  men.  "  That  with  five  thousand  men  exclusive 
of  the  garrisons,  we  stopped  and  held  in  check  over  one 
hundred  thousand  of  the  enemy.  *  *  *  The  men 
slept  in  the  trenches,  and  under  arms,  but  to  my  great 
surprise,  he  (McClellan)  permitted  day  after  day  to  elapse 
without  any  assault."  3 

This  force  detained  McClellan  from  April  isttoMay4th. 
With  an  army  of  nearly  or  quite  one  hundred  thousand  men, 
he  set  down  to  a  regular  siege,  and  when  he  was  fully  ready  to 
open  with  his  great  guns,  the  enemy  had  left.  A  vigorous  and 
active  commander  would  not  have  permitted  this  handful  of 
men  to  delay  his  march.  On  the  nth  of  April,  the  President 
telegraphed  to  McClellan:  "You  now  have  one  hundred 
thousand  troops  with  you,  independent  of  General  Wool's 
command.  I  think  that  you  had  better  break  the  enemy's 
line  at  once."  4 

In  reply  to  McClellan's  constant  applications  for  re-en 
forcements,  the  President,  on  the  9th  of  April,  wrote  him  a 

1.  Official  Records  of  the  Rebellion,  Series  I.  VII.  p.  3d,  p.  65.  i 

2.  Official  Reports  of  the  Rebellion,  S.  I.  VII.  p.  3d,  p.  71.       f 

3.  This  report  of  Magruder  is  corroborated  by  a  letter  from   General  Raines  to 
General  Hill,  in  which  he  says  that  when  McClellan  approached  Torktown,  Magruder 
had  but  9,300  effective  men.    See  Official  Records  of  the  War  of  the   Rebellion,  S.  I_ 
VII.  p.  3d,  p.  516. 

4.  Report  of  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  "War,  pp.  319-320. 


284  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

very  kind  and  frank  letter,  in  which,  among  other  things,  he 
.says:  "  I  suppose  the  whole  force  which  has  gone  forward 
to  you,  is  with  you  by  this  time,  and  if  so,  I  think  that  it  is 
the  precise  time  for  you  to  strike  a  blow.  By  delay,  the 
enemy  will  relatively  gain  upon  you — that  is,  he  will  gain 
faster  by  fortifications  and  re-enforcements  than  you  can  by 
re-enforcements  alone;  and  once  more  let  me  tell  you,  it  is 
indispensable  to  you  that  you  strike  a  blow.  I  am  powerless 
to  help  this.  You  will  do  me  the  justice  to  remember  I 
always  insisted  that  going  down  the  bay  in  search  of  a  field, 
instead  of  fighting  near  Manassas,  was  only  shifting,  not  sur 
mounting  the  difficulty.  *  *  *  The  country  will  not  fail 
to  note — and  it  is  now  noting — that  the  present  hesitation  to 
move  upon  an  intrenched  enemy,  is  but  the  story  of  Manas 
sas  repeated.  I  beg  to  assure  you  I  have  never  written  * 
*  *  in  greater  kindness,  nor  with  a  fuller  purpose  to  sus 
tain  you,  so  far  as  in  my  most  anxious  judgment  I  con 
sistently  can.  But  you  must  act."  1 

Yet  McClellan,  disregarding  these  urgent  and  repeated 
-appeals  and  orders,  still  remained  in  front  of  the  works  at 
Yorktown.  His  "  long  delay,"  as  Johnston  called  it,  was  as 
inexplicable  to  the  Confederates,  as  to  the  administration  at 
Washington.2  On  the  22d  of  April,  General  Joseph  E. 
Johnston,  writing  to  Lee,  says,  "  No  one  but  McClellan 
could  have  hesitated  to  attack."  3 

No  one  can  read  the  official  records  of  the  war,  as  pub 
lished  by  the  government,  without  being  impressed  by  the 
patience  and  forbearance  of  the  President.  Earnestly,  and 
frequently,  and  vainly,  he  urged,  entreated,  and  directed 
McClellan,  again  and  again,  "  to  strike  a  blow."  The  impar 
tial  judgment  of  the  future  will  be  that  Lincoln's  forbear- 

1.  Report  on  Conduct  of  War,  p.  1.  pp.  321-322. 

2.  General  Johnston,  writing  to  General  Robert  E.  Lee,  April  29th,   says  :"I  sus 
pect  McClellan  is  waiting  for  iron-clad  war  vessels  for  James  River.    They  would 
enable  him  to  reach  Richmond  three  days  before  us.    I  cannot  account  otherwise  for 
thia  long  delay  here."        *        *        "  Yorktown  cannot  hold  out."      See  Official  Rec 
ords  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion,    Sec.  1,  Vol.  VII,  Pt.  3d,  p.  473. 

8,  The  same,  p.  454. 


MILITARY  OPERATIONS  IN  1861-1862.  285, 

ance  was  continued  long  after  it  had  "  ceased  to  be  a  vir 
tue." 

On  the  6th  of  April,  the  President  telegraphed  to  McClel- 
lan  :  "  I  think  you  had  better  break  the  enemy's  line  from 
Yorktown  at  once."  On  the  9th  of  April,  he  said  :  "  I 
think  it  the  precise  time  for  you  to  strike  a  blow.  It  is  indis 
pensable  for  you  to  strike  a  blow.  You  must  act."  On  the 
ist  of  May,  he  asked  :  "  Is  anything  to  be  done  ?  "  On  the 
25th  of  May,  Mr.  Lincoln  telegraphed  McClellan  :  "  I  think 
the  time  is  near  at  hand  when  you  must  either  attack  Rich 
mond,  or  give  up  the  job,  and  come  to  the  defense  of  Wash 
ington." 

On  the  2ist  of  June,  McClellan,  from  his  camp  on  the 
Chickahominy,  addressing  the  President,  asked  permission 
"  to  lay  before  your  Excellency  my  views  as  to  the  present 
state  of  military  affairs  throughout  the  whole  country."  The 
President  replied,  with  great  good  nature  and  some  sarcasm  : 
"  If  it  would  not  divert  your  time  and  attention  from  the  army 
under  your  command,  I  should  be  glad  to  hear  your  views 
on  the  present  state  of  military  affairs  throughout  the  whole 
country." 

On  the  2yth  of  June,  McClellan  announced  his  intention 
to  retreat  to  the  James  River,  and  he  had  the  indiscretion  to 
send  to  the  Secretary  of  War  an  insubordinate  and  insulting 
dispatch,  in  which  he  says  :  "  If  I  save  this  army,  I  tell  you 
plainly,  I  owe  no  thanks  to  you,  nor  to  any  one  at  Washing 
ton.  You  have  done  your  best  to  destroy  this  army."  Such 
a  dispatch  addressed  to  any  government,  the  head  of  which 
was  less  patient  and  forbearing  than  Lincoln,  would  have 
resulted  in  his  removal,  arrest,  and  trial.  The  great  army, 
with  its  spirit  unbroken,  at  times  turning  at  bay,  retreated  to 
Malvern  Hill. 

On  the  yth  of  July,  while  at  Harrison's  Landing,  McClel 
lan  had  the  presumption  to  send  to  the  President  a  long  let 
ter  of  advice  upon  the  general  conduct  of  the  administration. 
This  letter  is  important,  as  it  illustrates  the  character  of  the 
man,  and  the  relations  between  him  and  the  Executive. 


286  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Unfortunately  for  his  usefulness  as  a  soldier,  he  had  per 
mitted  himself  to  become  the  head  of  a  party,  and  was  look 
ing  to  the  Presidency,  at  the  hands  of  those  in  opposition  to 
the  President,  and  whose  nominee  he  became  at  the  next 
Presidential  election. 

The  high  command  which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  given  him  ; 
the  crowd  of  staff-officers  and  subordinates,  by  which  he  was 
surrounded  and  flattered  ;  his  personal  popularity  with  his 
soldiers  ;  all  these  had  turned  his  head,  and  his  failures  as  a 
leader  did  not  restore  his  judgment.  This  young  captain  of 
engineers,  not  thirty-seven  years  old,  who  had  never  seen  a 
day's  service  in  public  life,  whose  studies  had  been  those  of 
a  civil  and  military  engineer,  and  who,  by  the  grace  and  favor 
of  the  President  was  in  command  of  the  army,  undertook  to 
enlighten  the  Executive  on  the  most  grave,  and  novel,  and 
complex  questions  involved  in  the  civil  war.  Questions 
which  taxed  to  the  utmost  the  ablest  and  most  experienced 
statesmen  of  the  world.  This  young  engineer  and  railroad 
president  had  the  presumption  to  advise  and  seek  to  instruct 
the  President  and  his  Cabinet. 

The  tone  of  the  letter  was  immodest  and  dictatorial. 
McClellan  said  to  his  commander:  "  Let  neither  military  dis 
aster,  political  faction,  nor  foreign  war  shake  your  settled 
purpose  to  enforce  the  equal  operation  of  the  laws  upon 
the  people  of  every  state."  Then  he  tells  the  Executive 
how  the  war  must  be  carried  on.  "  Neither  confiscation  of 
property,  political  executions  of  persons,  territorial  organ 
ization  of  states,  or  forcible  abolition  of  slavery  should  be 
contemplated  for  one  moment."  And  he  then  intimates, 
that  unless  his  views  as  presented,  "  should  be  made  known 
and  approved,  the  effort  to  obtain  the  requisite  forces  will 
be  almost  hopeless.  A  declaration  of  radical  views,  espe 
cially  upon  slavery,  will  rapidly  disintegrate  our  present 
armies."  l 

The  President  had  a  right  to  expect  from  the  commander 
of  his  armies  personal  fidelity  and  sympathy,  if  not  loyalty 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  pp.  385-386. 


MILITARY  OPERATIONS  IN  1861-1862.  287 

to  his  administration.  General  McClellan  gave  him  neither. 
He  was  in  the  hands,  and  he  was  the  instrument,  of  those 
who  wished  to  overthrow  the  administration,  and  to  go  into 
power  upon  its  ruins.  Knowing  this,  Mr.  Lincoln  continued 
him  at  the  head  of  the  armies,  and  urged  him  again  and 
again  "  to  strike  a  blow,"  to  achieve  those  victories  which 
might  have  made  him  President.  General  McClellan  had 
done  nothing  then — he  has  done  nothing  since — to  justify 
•or  excuse  the  presumption  of  his  conduct. 

On  the  8th  of  July,  1862,  the  President  visited  the  camp 
of  General  McClellan,  and  was  depressed  upon  finding  that, 
of  the  magnificent  army  with  which  that  general  had  started 
to  capture  Richmond,  and  with  all  the  re-enforcements  which 
had  been  sent  to  it,  there  were  now  remaining  only  eighty- 
five  thousand  effective  men.  There  is  a  touching  story  in 
Roman  history  of  the  Emperor  Augustus  calling  in  vain 
upon  Varus  to  give  him  back  his  legions.  The  President 
might  well  have  said  to  McClellan,  at  Harrison  Landing  : 
"  Where  are  my  soldiers,  where  the  patriotic  young  volun 
teers,  vainly  sacrificed  in  fruitless  battles  from  Yorktown  to 
Malvern  Hill,  and  the  still  larger  numbers  who  have  per 
ished  in  hospitals,  and  in  the  swamps  of  the  Chickahominy  ?" 
"  What  has  been  gained  by  this  costly  sacrifice  ?  " 

The  records  of  the  Confederates  make  it  perfectly  clear 
that  there  were  several  occasions  when  the  army  of  the 
Potomac  could  have  broken  through  their  thin  lines  and 
gone  into  Richmond,  but  McClellan  had  not  the  sagacity  to 
discover  it,  and  if  he  had  known  of  their  weakness,  he  would 
probably  have  hesitated  until  it  was  too  late.  The  dis 
asters  and  failures  of  the  great  army  of  McClellan,  con 
trasted  with  the  brilliant  successes  at  the  West,  naturally 
suggested  the  transfer  to  the  East  of  some  of  the  officers 
under  whom  these  successes  had  been  achieved.  On  the 
nth  of  July,  1862,  Halleck  had  been  appointed  General  in 
Chief,  and  on  the  23d  he  entered  upon  his  duties  as  such. 

General  John  Pope,  son  of  Nathaniel  Pope,  United 
States  District  Judge  of  Illinois,  in  whose  courts  the  Presi- 


288  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

dent  had  for  many  years  practised  law,  was  believed  to  be 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  rising  young  officers  of  the 
West.  He  had  been  successful  at  Island  No.  10,  and  at 
New  Madrid  on  the  Mississippi.  Lincoln  knew  him  and  his 
family  well.  They  had  been  neighbors,  and  the  President 
rejoiced  in  his  fame.  On  the  2yth  of  June  he  issued  an 
order,  creating  the  army  of  Virginia,  under  the  command  of 
General  Pope,  to  consist  of  the  three  army  corps  of  Generals 
Fremont,  Banks,  and  McDowell.  Fremont  resigned  on  the 
ground  that  Pope  was  his  junior. 

On  the  1 4th  of  July,  Pope  assumed  command,  and  issued 
an  address  to  his  army  in  which  he  said: 

"  I  have  come  to  you  from  the  West,  where  we  have  always  seen 
the  backs  of  our  enemies  ;  from  an  army  whose  business  it  has  been 
to  seek  an  adversary,  and  beat  him  when  found  ;  whose  policy  has  been 
attack  and  not  defense.  In  but  one  instance  has  the  enemy  been  able  to 
place  our  Western  armies  in  a  defensive  attitude.  I  presume  I  have  been 
called  here  to  pursue  the  same  system,  and  to  lead  you  against  the 
enemy.  It  is  my  purpose  to  do  so,  and  that  speedily.  I  am  sure  you 
long  for  an  opportunity  to  win  the  distinction  you  are  capable  of  achiev 
ing;  that  opportunity  I  shall  endeavor  to  give  you.  In  the  meantime,  I 
desire  you  to  dismiss  certain  phrases  I  am  sorry  to  find  in  vogue  amongst 
you." 

"  I  hear  constantly  of  taking  strong  positions  and  holding  them — of 
lines  of  retreat  and  bases  of  supplies.  Let  us  discard  such  ideas.  The 
strongest  position  a  soldier  should  desire  to  occupy  is  one  from  which  he 
can  most  easily  advance  against  the  enemy.  Let  us  study  the  probable 
line  of  retreat  of  our  opponents,  and  leave  our  own  to  take  care  of  itself. 
Let  us  look  before  us  and  not  behind.  Success  and  glory  are  in  the 
advance — disaster  and  shame  lurk  in  the  rear.  Let  us  act  on  this  under 
standing,  and  it  is  safe  to  predict  that  your  banners  shall  be  inscribed 
with  many  a  glorious  deed,  and  that  your  names  will  be  dear  to  your 
countrymen  forever." 

This  indiscreet  address,  though  so  full  of  the  ardor  of  a 
young,  successful,  and  sanguine  soldier,  was  as  bad  in  taste 
as  mistaken  in  policy.  While  it  indicated  a  vigorous  policy 
and  a  spirited  campaign,  it  naturally  created  an  intense  feel 
ing  of  hostility  against  him  among  the  officers  of  the  army 
of  the  Potomac.  It  aroused  local  jealousy,  and  increased 


MILITARY  OPERATIONS  IN  1861-1862. 

the  prejudice  which  resulted  in  the  sacrifice  of  Pope  and 
others.  At  the  close  of  a  brilliant  and  successful  campaign 
it  would  have  been  more  excusable. 

The  failure  of  McClellan's  campaign  did  not  in  the  least 
dishearten  the  North,  nor  shake  the  determination  of  the 
people  to  crush  the  rebellion.  It  created  the  necessity  for 
still  greater  efforts.  The  governors  of  seventeen  states  met 
at  Altoona,  in  Pennsylvania,  on  the  28th  of  June,  and  united 
in  an  address  to  the  President,  announcing  the  readiness  of 
the  people  of  their  respective  states  to  respond  to  a  call  for 
more  soldiers,  and  their  desire  for  the  most  vigorous  meas 
ures  for  carrying  on  the  war.  The  President  issued  a  call 
for  three  hundred  thousand  additional  volunteers. 

Pope  had  but  about  thirty-eight  thousand  men.  With 
this  small  force  he  was  to  defend  Washington,  hold  the 
valley  of  the  Shenandoah,  and  repel  the  expected  approach 
of  Lee.  He  was  early  aware  that  he  had  incurred  the  hos 
tility  of  McClellan,  and  that  he  could  not  rely  on  the  hearty 
cooperation  of  that  general  and  his  subordinates.  Conscious 
of  this,  and  seeing  the  fearful  odds  he  was  to  encounter,  he 
asked  to  be  relieved.  This  was  declined,  and  there  was 
nothing  left  for  him  but  to  do  all  that  was  possible  with  the 
force  under  his  command.  Lee  and  the  army  of  Virginia 
were  nearer  Washington  than  McClellan.  General  Burn- 
side  had  brought  his  army  to  Fortress  Monroe,  ready  to 
cooperate  with  McClellan.  A  bold  move  upon  Richmond 
would  keep  Lee  on  the  defensive,  but  such  a  movement 
under  McClellan — judging  from  the  past — could  scarcely  be 
expected.  It  was  determined  to  withdraw  McClellan's  army 
from  the  James,  and  concentrate  it  with  the  command  of 
Pope.  Pope  was  active  and  vigilant,  and  did  all  that  could 
be  done  with  the  force  under  his  control.  On  the  i4th  of 
August,  he  was  reinforced  by  General  Reno's  division  of 
Burnside's  arm)'.  On  the  i6th,  he  captured  a  letter  of 
General  Lee  to  Stuart,  showing  that  Lee  was  preparing  to 
mass  an  overwhelming  force  in  his  front,  and  crush  him 
before  he  could  be  re-enforced  from  the  army  of  the  Poto- 
19 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

mac.  He  retired  on  the  night  of  the  i8th  behind  the  Rap- 
pahannock.  The  presence  of  the  army  of  McClellan  was 
now  imperatively  needed,  and  its  absence  made  Pope's  posi 
tion  critical. 

Where  was  it,  and  why  did  it  not  cooperate  with  Pope  ? 
It  made  no  movement  towards  Richmond  nor  towards  Pope. 
Why  was  this,  and  who  was  responsible  for  Pope's  defeat  ? 
Let  us  examine  the  orders  which  were  sent  to  McClellan, 
and  try  to  determine  whether  he  honestly  and  in  good  faith 
obeyed  these  orders,  or  whether  he  sullenly  disregarded 
them,  and  left  Pope  to  be  crushed.  As  early  as  the  3oth  of 
July,  McClellan  had  been  ordered  to  send  away  his  sick  and 
wounded,  and  to  clear  his  hospitals,  preparatory  to  moving. 
This  order  was  repeated  August  2d.  On  the  3d,  he  was 
directed  to  prepare  to  withdraw  his  army  to  Acquia  Creek,  a 
stream  that  empties  into  the  Potomac,  and  within  support 
ing  distance  of  Pope.  He  remonstrated,  delayed  obedience, 
and  remained  where  he  was  until  the  6th.  He  was  then 
advised  that  "  the  order  to  withdraw  would  not  be 
rescinded,"  and  it  was  said  to  him,  with  emphasis:  "  You 
will  be  expected  to  obey  it  with  all  possible  promptness"  On 
the  6th,  he  was  ordered  to  send  a  regiment  of  cavalry  and 
several  batteries  to  Burnside,  who  was  at  Acquia  Creek. 
Instead  of  obeying  promptly,  he  sent  reasons  for  still  fur 
ther  delay,  and  said  he  would  "  obey  as  soon  as  circum 
stances  would  permit  it." 

McClellan  did  not  arrive  at  Alexandria  until  August 
26th.  On  the  Qth,  General  Halleck  telegraphed  as  follows  : 
"  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  enemy  is  massing  his  forces 
in  front  of  Generals  Pope  and  Burnside,  and  that  he  expects 
to  crush  them,  and  move  forward  to  the  Potomac.  You 
must  send  re-enforcements  instantly  to  Acquia  Creek.  Con 
sidering  the  amount  of  transportation  at  your  disposal,  your 
delay  is  not  satisfactory.  You  must  move  with  all  possible 
celerity  !  "  This  was  August  9th,  and  yet  re-enforcements 
did  not  leave  Fortress  Monroe  for  Acquia,  until  the  23d 
of  August  !  On  the  roth,  a  week  after  the  order  was 


MILITARY  OPERATIONS  IN  1861-1862.  29! 

first  given,  Halleck  again  telegraphed  :  "  The  enemy  is 
crossing  the  Rapidan  in  large  force.  They  are  fighting 
General  Pope  to-day.  There  must  be  no  further  delay  in 
your  movements.  That  which  has  already  occurred  was 
entirely  unexpected,  and  must  be  satisfactorily  explained." 
Pope  was  gallantly  fighting  against  an  overwhelming 
force.  Lee  was  massing  troops  to  crush  him  and  reach 
Washington,  and  yet  McClellan  did  not  move.  On  the  i2th 
of  August,  General  Halleck  telegraphed  : 

"  The  Quartermaster  General  informs  me  that  nearly  every  available 
steam  vessel  in  the  country  is  now  under  your  control.  Burnside  moved 
nearly  thirteen  thousand  troops  to  Acquia  Creek  in  less  than  two  days, 
and  his  transports  were  immediately  sent  back  to  you.  All  the  vessels  in 
the  James  River  and  the  Chesapeake  Bay  were  placed  at  your  disposal, 
and  it  was  supposed  that  eight  or  ten  thousand  of  your  men  could  be 
transported  daily.  There  has  been,  and  is,  the  most  urgent  necessity 
for  dispatch,  and  not  a  single  moment  must  be  lost  in  getting  additional 
troops  in  front  of  Washington." 

On  the  2ist,  Halleck  again  telegraphed  to  McClellan  at 
Fortress  Monroe  : 

"  The  forces  of  Burnside  and  Pope  are  hard  pushed,  and  require 
aid  as  rapidly  as  you  can  send  it.  By  all  means  see  that  the  troops  sent 
have  plenty  of  ammunition,"  etc. 

On  the  evening  of  August  23d,  the  reluctant  and  tardy 
McClellan  at  last  sailed  from  Fortress  Monroe,  arriving  at 
Acquia  Creek  on  the  morning  of  the  24th,  and  at  Alexandria 
oh  the  2yth  of  August  ! 

It  would  seem  that  no  candid  mind  can  read  the  corre 
spondence  between  Halleck  and  McClellan  and  the  Presi 
dent,  from  early  August  until  September,  without  being 
convinced  that  McClellan  neglected  to  obey  orders,  and  that 
he  did  so  with  a  knowledge  of  the  dangerous  position  of 
Pope.  If  Porter,  or  any  of  McClellan's  lieutenants  had 
been  in  the  position  of  Pope,  would  he  have  been  left  to 
fight,  with  the  force  at  his  command,  the  battles  of  the  2;th, 
28th,  and  29th  of  August? 

It  may  be  asked — as  it  often  has  been — why  was  not 


2Q2  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

McClellan  removed  ?  He  was  popular  with  his  army.  His 
subordinates  were  generally  his  friends.  He  was  the  head, 
and  expected  candidate  of  the  democratic  party  for  the 
Presidency.  It  had  been  the  earnest  endeavor  of  Mr.  Lin 
coln  to  unite  and  combine  with  the  republican  party  all  of 
the  democrats  who  were  loyal  to  the  Union  ;  the  removal  of 
McClellan  would  be  regarded  by  many  as  a  political  move 
ment,  and  for  these  and  other  political  reasons,  his  removal 
was  considered  unwise. 

Meanwhile  Pope  was  being  driven  towards  Washington, 
by  Jackson,  Longstreet,  and  Lee  himself,  and  neither  Por 
ter,  nor  Franklin,  nor  any  of  McClellan's  subordinates, 
came  to  his  aid.  Porter,  although  within  the  sound  of 
Pope's  artillery  and  the  rebel  guns,  and  conscious  of  his 
critical  position,  did  not  go  to  his  support.  He  was  tried 
for  his  disobedience  to  orders,  found  guilty,  and  dismissed 
from  the  army.  This  judgment  the  President  approved. 

It  is  not  intended  to  review  the  trial  of  Porter.  1     His 

1.  At  12  o'clock,  on  the  27th  of  August,  Halle ck  telegraphed  to  McClellan : 
"Telegrams  from  Porter  to  Burnside."  "  Porter  Is  marching  on  Warrenton  to  re- 
enforce  Pope. "  *  *  "Porter  reports  a  general  battle  imminent.  Franklin's 
corps  should  move  out  by  forced  marches,"  etc. 

On  the  25th  Halleck  telegraphed  to  McClellan  : 

"Not  a  moment  must  be  lost  In  pushing  as  large  a  force  as  possible  towards 
Manassas,  so  as  to  communicate  with  Pope  before  the  enemy  is  re-enforced."  See 
Report  on  the  Conduct  of  War,  Pt.  1,  pp.  459,  461. 

On  the  same  day  he  telegraphed  again  : 

"There  must  be  no  further  delay  in  moving  Franklin's  corps  towards  Manassas  ; 
they  must  go  to-morrow  morning,  ready  or  not  ready.  If  we  delay  too  long  to  get 
ready,  there  will  be  no  necessity  to  go  at  ay,  for  Pope  will  either  be  defeated  or  vic 
torious,  without  our  aid.  If  there  is  a  want  of  wagons,  the  men  must  carry  provis 
ions  with  them  till  the  wagons  can  come  to  their  relief." 

At  3  P.  M.,  on  the  29th,  Halleck  telegraphed  to  McClellan,  in  reply  to  his  dispatch 
of  12  M. : 

"I  want  Franklin's  corps  to  go  far  enough  to  find  out  something  about  the 
enemy.  Perhaps  he  may  get  such  information  at  Anandale  as  to  prevent  his  going 
further,  otherwise  he  will  push  on  towards  Fairfax.  Try  to  get  something  from 
direction  of  Manassas,  either  by  telegram  or  through  Franklin's  scouts.  Our  people 
must  move  more  actively,  and  find  out  where  the  enemy  is.  I  am  tired  of  guesses." 

At  2:40,  the  President,  in  his  intense  anxiety  to  know  the  fate  of  the  army  fight 
ing  against  odds,  telegraphed  to  McClellan  to  know  :  "What  news  from  direction  of 
Manassas  Junction  ?  What  generally  ? '' 

At  2:45,  General  McClellan  replied  : 

"  The  last  news  I  received  from  the  direction  of  Manassas,  was  from  stragglers, 
to  the  effect  that  the  enemy  were  evacuating  Centreville,  and  retiring  towards  Thor- 


MILITARY  OPERATIONS  IN  1861-1862.  293 

•conduct  has  been  much  discussed.  He  was  found  guilty  by 
a  court  of  general  officers,  composed  of  men  of  the  highest 
character.  There  does  not  seem  to  be  any  room  for  doubt 
that  he  did  not  give  Pope  his  loyal  and  hearty  support. 
Some  of  his  apologists  have  said  that  this  ought  not  to 
have  been  expected  ;  that  it  was  not  in  human  nature. 
This  depends  on  the  sort  of  human  nature.  A  true 
patriot  and  soldier  would  have  forgotten  his  grievances,  and 
those  of  his  chief  ;  would  have  been  at  the  front  in  the  bat 
tle.  His  duty  clearly  was  to  do  his  utmost  to  relieve  Pope. 
Few  candid  men  will  believe  he  did  this.  Suppose  McClel- 
lan  had  been  in  the  position  of  Pope — are  there  any  who 
believe  Fitz-John  Porter  would  have  left  him  alone  "  to  get 
•out  of  his  scrape?"  Or  suppose  Porter  had  been  fighting 
Lee  and  his  whole  army,  as  Pope  was,  would  it  have  taken 
McClellan  an  entire  month  to  come  up  the  Potomac  to  his 
relief  ?  No,  McClellan  would  have  joined  his  favorite  lieu 
tenant  long  before  the  arrival  of  Longstreet,  and  Lee  would 
have  had  to  meet  the  combined  armies.  If  McClellan  had 
been  exposed  as  Pope  was,  the  guns  of  Porter  would  have 
been  playing  upon  the  enemy,  and  not  at  rest  in  sullen 
silence  in  his  camp. 

On  the  2d  of  September,  Pope  fell  back  to  the  fortifica 
tions  of  Washington.  The  situation  was  critical.  As  Pope 
retired  to  Washington,  Lee  advanced  towards  Maryland, 

•oughfare  Gap.  This  is  by  no  means  reliable.  I  am  clear  that  one  of  two  courses 
should  be  adopted :  First,  To  concentrate  all  our  available  forces  to  open  communi 
cation  with  Pope.  Second,  To  leave  Pope  to  get  out  of  his  scrape,  and  at  once  use  all 
means  to  make  the  capital  perfectly  safe.  No  middle  course  will  now  answer.  Tell 
me  what  you  wish  me  to  do,  and  I  will  do  all  in  my  power  to  accomplish  it.  I  wish 
to  know  what  my  orders  and  authority  are.  I  ask  for  nothing,  but  will  obey  what 
ever  orders  you  give.  I  only  ask  a  prompt  decision,  that  I  may  at  once  give  the  nec 
essary  orders.  It  will  not  do  to  delay  longer." 

General  Halleck  telegraphed  the  following  peremptory  order,  at  7:30,  on  the 
29th: 

"  Tou  will  immediately  send  construction  train  and  guards  to  repair  the  railroad 
toManassas.  Let  there  be  no  delay  in  this.  I  have  just  been  told  that  Franklin's 
corps  stopped  at  Anandale,  and  that  he  was  this  evening  at  Alexandria.  This  is  all 
contrary  to  my  orders.  Investigate  and  report  the  fact  of  this  disobedience.  That 
corps  must  push  forward  as  I  directed,  to  protect  the  railroad,  and  open  communica 
tion  with  Manassas." 


294  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

threatening  the  capital.  The  defeat  of  Pope  might  have  been 
prevented  by  the  union  and  co-operation  with  him  of  McClel- 
lan.  Two  courses  of  action  were  discussed  in  the  Cabinet 
of  Mr.  Lincoln.  One,  urged  by  the  friends  of  McClellan, 
was  to  place  him  in  command  of  all  the  forces,  including  the 
remnants  of  the  army  of  Virginia;  the  other,  to  arrest  him 
and  some  of  his  subordinates,  and  try  them  for  disobedience 
and  insubordination.  General  Halleck,  the  Secretary  of 
War,  and  others,  charged  him  with  being  responsible  for  the 
defeat  of  Pope,  and  many  in  high  positions  declared  that  he 
ought  to  be  shot  for  his  military  offences.  It  was  one  of 
the  most  critical  periods  of  the  war.  Party  spirit  was  a  vio 
lent  faction  in  Congress,  and  as  represented  by  the  press, 
was  intemperate.  The  army  was  split  by  cabals,  jealousies, 
and  quarrels.  This,  with  defeat  and  disaster  in  the  field, 
made  the  prospect  gloomy  and  perilous,  but  the  President's 
fortitude  and  courage  did  not  desert  him.  Unselfish  and 
firm,  he  trusted  in  the  people  and  in  God.  That  firm  belief 
in  an  overruling  Providence,  which  some  called  superstition, 
sustained  him  in  this  the  darkest  hour. 

McClellan  was  the  representative  man  of  the  so-called 
war  democrats.  He  had  the  confidence  of  his  officers,  and 
was  personally  popular  with  the  soldiers.  The  President 
yielded  to  the  military  necessity,  or  supposed  military  neces 
sity,  and  placed  him  again  in  command  of  all  the  troops,  and 
McClellan  assumed  the  responsibility  of  defending  the  capi 
tal,  and  defeating  Lee.  Indeed,  it  seems  the  wisest  thing  he 
could  have  done.  The  army  of  the  Potomac  was  demoral 
ized,  some  of  it  on  the  verge  of  mutiny,  and  the  conduct  of 
Franklin  and  Fitz-John  Porter  indicates  the  spirit  in  which 
McClellan's  lieutenants  would  have  supported  any  other 
chief.  With  Lee  and  his  victorious  troops  menacing  Wash 
ington,  it  was  a  military  necessity;  Lincoln,  with  his  usual, 
good  sense,  saw  and  yielded  to  it. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

ANTIETAM  AND  CHANCELLORSVILLE. 

HARPER'S  FERRY  CAPTURED. — ANTIETAM. — MCCLELLAN'S  DELAY. — 
RELIEVED  OF  COMMAND. — BURNSIDE  APPOINTED  HIS  SUCCESSOR. 
— FREDERICKSBURG. — BURNSIDE  RESIGNS. — HOOKER  SUCCEEDS 
HIM. — LINCOLN'S  LETTER  TO  HOOKER. — CHANCELLORSVILLE. 

LINCOLN  now  magnanimously  gave  General  McClellan 
another  and  a  splendid  opportunity  to  achieve  success.  His 
command  embraced  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  the  remains 
of  the  army  of  Pope,  and  the  troops  of  Burnside,  while  to 
these  were  added  the  large  number  of  recruits  and  volun 
teers  which  poured  in  from  the  loyal  states,  so  that  he  had, 
before  November,  more  than  two  hundred  thousand  soldiers 
under  his  command. 

If  he  had  possessed  to  any  extent  the  elements  of  a  hero, 
if  he  could  have  led  a  rapid  and  brilliant  campaign,  he  had 
now  the  opportunity,  and  the  people  would  have  eagerly 
crowned  him  with  the  laurels  of  victory.  But  as  soon  as  he 
was  settled  in  his  command,  he  continued  to  make  the  old 
complaints  and  calls  for  more  troops.  He  wished  those 
engaged  in  the  defense  of  Washington  sent  to  him,  even  if 
the  capital  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.1 

Colonel  Miles  and  General  Julius  White,  in  September, 
1862,  occupied  the  picturesque  village  of  Harper's  Ferry, 
with  some  twelve  thousand  soldiers.  On  the  nth,  McClel 
lan  asked  that  these  troops  be  directed  to  join  his  army. 
That  order  was  not  given,  but  it  was  suggested  to  him  that 

1.  He  wished  the  troops  sent  to  him,  "even  if  Washington  should  betaken." 
*  "  That  would  not  bear  comparison  with  a  single  defeat  of  this 

army.''     Report  on  Conduct  of  the  War,  Ft.  1,  p.  39. 

295 


296  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

he  open  communication  with  Harper's  Ferry,  and  that  then 
these  troops  would  be  under  his  command.  On  the  i3th, 
he  knew  that  Lee's  army  was  divided,  and  that  Jackson 
had  been  detached  from  the  main  army  for  the  purpose  of 
capturing  Harper's  Ferry.  McClellan  by  promptness  could 
have  saved  Harper's  Ferry.  Swinton,  who  excuses  him 
when  he  can,  says:  "If  he  had  thrown  forward  his  army 
with  the  vigor  used  by  Jackson  *  *  *  he  could  have 
relieved  Harper's  Ferry,  which  did  not  surrender  until  the 
15th."1  Palfrey,  in  his  "  Antietam  and  Fredericksburg," 
says:  "He  was  not  equal  to  the  occasion.  He  threw  away 
his  chance,  and  a  precious  opportunity  of  making  a  great 
name  passed  away."2 

On  the  i  yth,  was  fought  the  bloody  battle  of  Antietam. 
Of  this  battle,  alluding  to  McClellan's  delay  in  attacking 
while  Lee's  forces  were  divided,  Palfrey  says  :  "  He  fought 
his  battle  one  day  too  late,  if  not  two."  "He  did  very  little 
in  the  way  of  compelling  the  execution  of  his  orders."  3  A 
very  large  portion  of  his  army  did  not  participate  in  the 
battle,  and  Palfrey  adds:  "  It  is  probable,  almost  to  a  point 
of  certainty,  that  if  a  great  part  of  the  Second  and  Fifth 
corps,  and  all  the  Sixth,  animated  by  the  personal  presence 
of  McClellan,  had  attacked  vigorously  in  the  center,  and 
Burnside  on  the  Federal  left,  *  *  *  the  result  would 
have  been  the  practical  annihilation  of  Lees  army !  "  4 

McClellan,  against  the  advice  of  Burnside  and  others, 
decided  not  to  renew  the  attack  on  the  i8th.  "  It  is,"  says 
Palfrey,  "hardly  worth  while  to  state  his  reasons."  Two 
divisions  had  joined  him.  "  The  fault  was  in  the  man. 
There  was  force  enough  at  his  command  either  day  had  he 
seen  fit  to  use  it."6  By  the  time  that  McClellan  got  ready 
to  renew  the  attack  Lee  was  gone.  On  the  i8th,  the  enemy 

1.  Swinton' s  Army  of  the  Potomac,  p.  202. 

2.  Palfrey's  "  Antietam  and  Fredericksburg,"  p.  41. 

3.  Palfrey's  "Antietam  and  Fredericksburg,"  p.  119. 

4.  Palfrey's'- Antietam  and  Fredericksburg,"  pp.  121-122. 

5.  Palfrey's  "  Antietam  and  Fredericksburg,"  p.  127. 


ANTIETAM  AND  CHANCELLORSVILLE.  297 

were  permitted  to  retire  across  the  Potomac.  The  Union 
army  slowly  followed,  occupying  Maryland  Heights  on  the 
2oth,  and  Harper's  Ferry  on  the  23d  of  September.  On  the 
7th  of  October,  Halleck  telegraphed  to  McClellan  that  "the 
army  must  move.  The  country  is  becoming  very  impatient 
at  the  want  of  activity  of  your  army,  and  we  must  push  it 
on." 

The  President  was  also  impatient  at  these  slow  move 
ments  of  McClellan,  and  to  a  friend  of  the  General's  who 
called  at  the  White  House,  he  said,  doubtless  with  the  expec 
tation  that  it  would  be  repeated  :  "  McClellan's  tardiness 
reminds  me  of  a  man  in  Illinois,  whose  attorney  was  not 
sufficiently  aggressive.  The  client  knew  a  few  law  phrases, 
and  finally,  after  waiting  until  his  patience  was  exhausted 
by  the  non-action  of  his  counsel,  he  sprang  to  his  feet  and 
exclaimed:  'Why  don't  you  go  at  him  with  a  fi.  fa.,  demur 
rer,  a  capias,  a  surrebutter,  or  a  ne  exeat,  or  something;  and 
not  stand  there  like  a  nudum  pactum,  or  a  -non  est  ? '  ' 

By  the  6th  of  October,  the  President's  impatience  of 
McClellan's  long  delay  induced  him  to  telegraph  the  General: 
•"  The  President  directs  that  you  cross  the  Potomac  and  give 
battle  to  the  enemy  or  drive  him  South."  McClellan  did  not 
obey.  On  the  roth,  Stuart,  a  rebel  cavalry  officer,  crossed 
the  Potomac,  went  as  far  as  Chambersburg  in  Pennsylvania, 
made  the  circuit  of  the  Federal  army,  and  re-crossed  the 
Potomac  without  serious  loss.  This  was  the  second  time 
Confederate  cavalry  had  been  permitted  to  ride  entirely 
around  McClellan's  army.  On  the  i3th  of  October,  the 
President  made  one  more  effort  to  induce  McClellan  to  act, 
t>y  writing  him  a  long  and  kindly  personal  letter.1 

1.  The  letter  was  as  follows  : 

"  My  Dear  Sir:— You  remember  my  speaking  to  you  of  what  I  called  your  over- 
cautiousness.  Are  you  not  over-cautious  when  you  assume  that  you  cannot  do  what 
the  enemy  Is  constantly  doing?  Should  you  not  claim  to  be  at  least  his  equal  in  prow 
ess,  and  act  upon  the  claim? 

"As  I  understand,  you  telegraphed  General  Halleck  that  you  cannot  subsist  your 
army  at  Winchester,  unless  the  railroad  from  Harper's  Ferry  to  that  point  be  put  in 
working  order.  But  the  enemy  does  now  subsist  his  army  at  Winchester,  at  a  distance 
nearly  twice  as  great  from  railroad  transportation,  as  you  would  have  to  do  without 
the  railroad  last  named.  He  now  wagons  from  Culpepper  Court  House,  which  Is  just 


298 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


Near  the  end  of  October  McClellan  started,  and  on  the 
2d  of  November  his  army  crossed  the  Potomac.  Thus 
the  autumn  had  gone  by,  from  the  battle  of  Antietam  on  the 
i yth  of  September  until  the  2d  of  November,  before 
McClellan  crossed  the  Potomac.  The  President  had  writ- 
ten,  begged,  and  entreated  McClellan  to  act.  In  his  letter  of 
October  i3th,  he  says:  "  I  say  try.  If  we  never  try,  we 
shall  never  succeed."  "We  should  not  operate  so  as  to 

about  twice  as  far  as  you  would  have  to  do  from  Harper's  Ferry.  He  is  certainly  not 
more  than  half  as  well  provided  with  wagons  as  you  are.  I  certainly  should  be  pleased 
for  you  to  have  the  advantage  of  the  railroad  from  Harper's  Ferry  to  Winchester;  but 
it  wastes  all  the  remainder  of  autumn  to  give  it  to  you,  and,  In  fact,  ignores  the 
question  of  time  which  cannot  and  must  not  be  ignored. 

"Again,  one  of  the  standard  maxims  of  war,  as  you  know,  is,  'to  operate  upon 
the  enemy's  communications  as  much  as  possible  without  exposing  your  own.'  You 
seem  to  act  as  if  this  applies  against  you,  but  cannot  apply  inyour/awr*.  Change 
positions  with  the  enemy,  and  think  you  not  he  would  break  your  communication  with 
Richmond  within  the  next  twenty-four  hours?  You  dread  his  going  into  Pennsylvania. 
But  if  he  does  so  in  full  force,  he  gives  up  his  communication  to  you  absolutely,  and 
you  have  nothing  to  do,  but  to  follow  and  ruin  him;  if  he  does  so  with  less  than  full 
force,  fall  upon  and  beat  what  is  left  behind,  all  the  easier. 

"  Exclusive  of  the  water  line,  you  are  now  nearer  Richmond  than  the  enemy  is, 
by  the  route  that  you  can,  and  he  must  take.  Why  can  you  not  reach  there  before  him, 
unless  you  admit  that  he  is  more  than  your  equal  on  a  march.  His  route  is  the  arc  of 
a  circle,  while  yours  is  the  chord.  The  roads  are  as  good  on  yours  as  on  his. 

"You  know  I  desired,  but  did  not  order  you,  to  cross  the  Potomac  below,  Instead 
of  above  the  Shenandoah  and  Blue  Ridge.  The  Idea  was  that  this  would  at  once 
menace  the  enemy's  communications,  which  I  would  seize,  If  he  would  permit.  If  he 
should  move  northward,  I  would  follow  him  closely,  holding  his  communications.  If 
he  should  prevent  our  seizing  his  communications,  and  move  towards  Richmond,  I 
would  press  closely  to  him,  fight  him  if  a  favorable  opportunity  should  present,  and 
at  least  try  to  beat  him  to  Richmond  on  the  inside  track.  I  say  try;  if  we  never  try^ 
we  shall  never  succeed.  If  he  makes  a  stand  at  Winchester,  moving  neither  north 
nor  south,  I  would  fight  him  there,  on  the  idea  that  If  we  cannot  beat  him  when  he 
bears  the  wastage  of  coming  to  us,  we  never  can  when  we  bear  the  wastage  of  going 
to  him.  This  proposition  is  a  simple  truth,  and  Is  too  important  to  be  lost  sight  of  for 
a  moment.  In  coming  to  us,  he  tenders  us  an  advantage  which  we  should  not  waive. 
We  should  not  so  operate  as  to  merely  drive  him  away.  As  we  must  beat  him  some 
where,  or  fail  finally,  we  can  do  it,  if  at  all,  easier  near  to  us  than  far  away.  If  we 
cannot  beat  the  enemy  where  he  now  is,  we  never  can,  he  again  being  within  the 
intrenchments  of  Richmond. 

"  Recurring  to  the  idea  of  going  to  Richmond  on  the  inside  track,  the  facility  for 
supplying  from  the  side  away  from  the  enemy,  is  remarkable,  as  It  were  by  the  differ 
ent  spokes  of  a  wheel  extending  from  the  hub  towards  the  rim,  and  this,  whether  you 
move  directly  by  the  chord  or  on  the  inside  arc,  hugging  the  Blue  Ridge  more  closely. 
The  chord  line,  as  you  see,  carries  you  by  Aldie,  Haymarket,  and  Frederlcksburg,  and 
you  see  how  turnpikes,  railroads,  and  finally  the  Potomac,  by  Acquia  Creek,  meet  you 
at  all  points  from  Washington.  The  same,  only  the  lines  lengthened  a  little,  if  you 
press  closer  to  the  Blue  Ridge  part  of  the  way.  The  gaps  through  the  Blue  Ridge,  I 


ANTIETAM  AND  CHANCELLORSVILLE.  299 

merely  to  drive  him  (the  enemy)  away."  In  a  dispatch  on 
the  2yth  day  of  October,  the  President  says:  "I  now  ask 
a  distinct  answer  to  the  question:  "Is  it  your  purpose  not 
to  go  into  action  again  until  the  men  now  being  drafted  are 
incorporated  in  the  old  regiments?"  l  The  patience  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  finally  exhausted,  and,  on  the  5th  of  November, 
he  issued  an  order  relieving  McClellan,  and  directing  him  to 
turn  over  the  command  to  General  Burnside.  Thus  ends 
the  military  career  of  George  B.  McClellan. 

The  judgment  of  General  Palfrey,  who  served  under 
him,  is  certainly  not  too  severe.  He  sums  up  his  military 
history  in  these  words:  "  His  interminable  and  inexcusable 
delays  upon  the  Peninsula  afforded  great  ground  for  dissatis 
faction,  and  they  seemed — to  say  no  more — to  be  followed 
by  similar  delays  upon  the  Potomac."  "  He  never  made 
his  personal  presence  felt  on  a  battle-field."* 

McClellan  retired  to  New  Jersey,  to  emerge  no  more 
except  as  the  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  in  1864,  of  the 
party  who  declared  "the  war  a  failure."  He  contributed  to 
this  failure,  in  so  far  as  it  was  one — considering  the  means 
at  his  command  to  make  it  a  success — more  than  almost  any 
other  man.  But  he  himself  was  the  most  conspicuous  failure 
of  the  war.  After  all  his  disasters  and  delays  upon  the  Pen 
insula,  the  President  generously  re-instated  him  in  com 
mand,  and  at  Antietam  and  afterwards,  he  had  golden  oppor 
tunities  to  redeem  his  failure.  He  was  retained  long  after 

understand  to  be  about  the  following  distances  from  Harper's  Perry,  to-wlt:  Vestala, 
five  miles;  Gregory's,  thirteen;  Snicker's,  eighteen;  Ashby's,  twenty-eight;  Manas- 
sas,  thirty-eight;  Chester,  forty-live;  and  Thornton's,  fifty-three.  I  should  think  It 
preferable  to  take  the  route  nearest  the  enemy,  disabling  him  to  make  an  important 
move  without  your  knowledge,  and  compelling  him  to  keep  his  forces  together  for 
dread  of  you.  The  gaps  would  enable  you  to  attack  if  you  should  wish.  For  a  great 
part  of  the  way  you  would  be  practically  between  the  enemy  and  both  Washington 
and  Richmond,  enabling  us  to  spare  you  the  greatest  number  of  troops  from  here. 
When  at  length,  running  for  Richmond  ahead  of  him,  enable  him  to  move  his  way;  if 
he  does  so,  turn  and  attack  him  in  rear.  But  I  think  he  should  be  engaged  long  before 
such  point  is  reached.  It  Is  all  easy  if  our  troops  march  as  well  as  the  enemy,  and  It 
is  unmanly  to  say  they  cannot  do  it.  This  letter  is  in  no  sense  an  order. 

"Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN." 

1.  Report  on  Conduct  of  the  War,  pt.  1,  p.  525. 

2    Palfrey's  "Antietam  and  Fredericksburg,"  p.  133-134. 


3OO  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

his  removal  had  been  demanded  by  the  friends  of  the  Presi 
dent.  The  patience,  fidelity,  and  forbearance  of  the  Presi 
dent  in  his  treatment  of  McClellan,  are  strikingly  illustrated 
by  his  correspondence.  History  will  censure  him  for  adher 
ing  to  the  General  too  long  rather  than  for  any  failure 
to  support  him.  But  McClellan  was  a  courteous  gentleman, 
whose  personal  character  was  amiable  and  respectable.  Mr. 
Lincoln  respected  his  private  virtues,  and  said  of  him: 
"With  all  his  failings  as  a  soldier,  McClellan  is  a  pleasant 
and  scholarly  gentleman.  He  is  an  admirable  engineer,  but," 
he  added,  "  he  seems  to  have  a  special  talent  for  a  stationary 
engine." 

On  the  Qth  of  November  General  Burnside  assumed 
command  of  the  great  army.  He  was  a  frank  and  manly 
soldier,  of  fine  person,  and  everywhere  respected  as  a  gentle 
man  and  an  unselfish  patriot.  He  accepted  the  high  posi 
tion  with  diffidence,  and  with  the  consciousness  that  he 
would  scarcely  receive  the  earnest  cooperation  of  the  favor 
ite  generals  of  McClellan.  On  the  i2th  of  this  month, 
Generals  Halleck  and  Meigs  visited  him  in  his  camp,  and 
held  a  conference  on  the  movements  to  be  made.  Halleck 
and  Burnside  failed  to  agree,  and  the  subject  was  referred 
to  the  President.  Burnside's  plan  was  to  make  a  feint  on 
Gordonsville,  but  to  concentrate  rapidly  and  attack  Fred- 
ericksburg.  The  President,  in  assenting  to  Burnside's  plan 
as  reported  by  Halleck,  said  to  the  General:  "  He  thinks  it 
(the  plan)  will  succeed  if  you  move  rapidly;  otherwise  not." 

The  absolute  necessity  of  rapid  movement,  and  the 
crossing  of  the  Rappahannock  before  Lee  could  concentrate 
his  army  and  fortify  Fredericksburg,  were  obvious.  By 
some  misunderstanding  or  gross  neglect,  the  pontoons  with 
which  to  cross  the  river  were  not  sent  forward  in  time.  This 
delay  was  fatal  in  its  consequences.  Burnside  arrived  at 
Falmouth,  on  the  banks  of  the  Rappahannock,  on  the  ipth 
of  November,  but  the  pontoons  did  not  arrive  until  the  25th. 
By  this  delay,  all  the  advantages  of  surprise  were  lost;  the 
-enemy  had  time  to  concentrate  his  army  on  the  heights  over- 


ANTIETAM  AND  CHANCELLORSVILLE.  30! 

looking  Fredericksburg,  to  intrench  and  prepare  to  meet 
the  attack.  There  has  been  much  discussion  as  to  who  was 
responsible  for  this  delay  in  the  arrival  of  the  pontoons. 
Considering  the  importance  of  their  being  there  in  time,  and 
that  the  fate  of  the  movement  depended  on  their  presence 
when  needed,  it  would  seem  that  all  were  negligent — Hal- 
leek,  and  Meigs,  and  Burnside.  Each  should  have  known 
personally  that  the  pontoons  were  there  in  time.  When,  on 
the  1 3th  of  December,  Burnside  attacked  Fredericksburg, 
he  found  Lee  with  his  army  concentrated  and  occupying 
a  strong  position  which  had  been  well  and  skillfully  fortified. 
The  assault  on  these  works  was  gallantly  made,  but, 
as  might  have  been  anticipated,  was  repulsed  with  terrible 
slaughter.  Lee  occupied  a  fortified  ridge,  the  approach  to 
which  was  swept  by  artillery.  It  is  difficult  to  understand 
why  this  army  should  have  been  ordered  across  a  river  like 
the  Rappahannock,  and  to  assault  a  fortified  position  so  well 
covered  by  breast-works  and  rifle-pits  ;  or  why,  when  the 
delay  of  the  pontoons  and  failure  to  surprise  the  enemy 
rendered  success  impossible,  some  flank  movement,  such  as 
was  repeatedly  made  by  Sherman  and  Grant,  should  not 
have  been  made,  thus  forcing  the  enemy  to  battle  on  more 
equal  ground. 

After  a  fearful  loss  of  life,  the  troops  were  withdrawn  to 
Falmouth,  and  there  the  two  armies  confronted  each  other 
from  the  opposite  banks  of  the  river.1 

In  the  campaign  of  1862,  in  the  East,  the  results  were 
on  the  whole  favorable  to  the  rebels.  With  a  much  smaller 
force,  they  kept  the  Union  army  during  all  the  autumn  of 
1 86 1  and  the  winter  of  1862  in  the  defences  of  Washington. 
They  blockaded  the  Potomac.  They  had,  by  the  blunders 
and  want  of  vigor  of  McClellan,  repulsed  him  from  Rich 
mond.  They  had  sent  Stonewall  Jackson  like  an  eagle 
swooping  down  through  the  valley  of  the  Shenandoah,  driv 
ing  Banks  across  the  Potomac,  and  escaping  from  Fremont 

1.  It  Is  no  more  than  justice  to  McClellan  to  say,  that  he  never  sacrificed  his 
soldiers  by  &  blunder  like  this. 


302 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


and  McDowell.  They  had  frightened  McClellan  from  Rich 
mond  without  ever  decidedly  defeating  his  combined  army. 
On  the  contrary,  his  troops  often  gained  great  advantages 
over  the  rebels,  yet  he  would  never  follow  up  these  suc 
cesses  and  seize  the  fruits  of  victory;  but  always,  after 
knocking  the  enemy  down,  would  stop,  call  for  re-enforce 
ments,  or  run  away  from  them. 

Then  came  the  hard  fought  campaign  of  Pope,  when,  if 
McClellan  and  Porter  had  loyally  obeyed  and  heartily 
cooperated  with  Pope,  the  armies  of  McClellan,  Pope,  and 
Burnside  would  have  been  consolidated  on  the  field  of 
Manassas,  and  would  have  crushed  the  much  smaller  force 
of  Lee.  Then  came  the  rebel  march  into  Maryland,  the 
battle  of  Antietam,  a  repulse  of  Lee  which  ought  to  have 
been  a  crushing  defeat,  followed  again  by  the  long  delays  of 
McClellan — a  dreary  waste  of  time,  and  of  inactive  com 
plaint.  Then  came  McClellan's  removal,  Burnside's  cam 
paign,  and  the  slaughter  of  Fredericksburg.  Such  is  the 
sad  story  of  the  brave  but  badly  commanded  army  of  the 
Potomac  to  the  close  of  1862. 

Burnside  survived  his  terrible  defeat;  survived  to  render 
good  but  subordinate  service  on  the  field,  and  died  a  useful 
and  respected  senator  in  Congress  from  Rhode  Island. 

The  progress  of  the  Union  armies  was  also  checked  in 
the  West.  Buell  was  forced  back,  and  the  rebel  General 
Bragg  entered  Kentucky,  and  occupied  Frankfort,  Lexing 
ton,  and  other  important  positions.  A  provisional  govern 
ment  was  organized  by  the  rebels  at  Frankfort.  Louisville 
and  Cincinnati  were  threatened  and  fortified.  On  the  8th 
of  October,  the  battle  of  Perryville  was  fought.  On  the 
25th,  Buell  was  superseded  by  General  Rosecrans. 

Vicksburg,  on  the  Mississippi,  a  strong  position  by 
nature,  and  fortified  with  skill,  was  still  an  insurmountable 
obstacle  to  the  complete  recovery  by  the  Union  troops  of 
the  Mississippi.  Generals  Sherman  and  McClernand,  on 
the  29th  of  December,  1862,  made  a  gallant  assault  upon 
the  defences  in  the  rear  of  this  stronghold,  but  were  repulsed 


ANTIETAM  AND  CHANCELLORSVILLE. 


303 


with  serious  loss.  On  the  3ist  of  December,  the  Union 
army  under  Rosecrans  fought  the  battle  of  Stone  River, 
where  there  was  great  loss  on  both  sides,  but  the  rebels, 
under  their  able  leader,  Johnston,  retreated  to  Murfreesboro. 

The  year  1862  closed  in  gloom.  There  had  been  vast 
expenditures  of  blood  and  treasure  by  the  government,  and 
great  successes,  yet  the  Union  cause  had  suffered  still  greater 
defeats  and  many  grievous  disasters,  and  the  hopes  of  the 
insurgents  rose  high. 

The  President  was  greatly  depressed  by  the  terrible 
defeat  at  Fredericksburg,  and  especially  by  the  great  and 
useless  sacrifice  of  the  lives  of  his  gallant  soldiers.  The 
leading  generals  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  were  quarrel 
ing  and  abusing  each  other.  Burnside  demanded  the  per 
emptory  removal  of  several  of  them,  and  among  others  that 
of  Hooker,  making  this  the  condition  of  his  retaining  his 
own  command.  The  Cabinet  was  divided,  and  its  members 
denouncing  each  other.  Faction  ran  high  in  Congress,  and 
the  committee  on  the  conduct  of  war  became  censorious  and 
abusive.  The  press  grew  bitter,  arrogant,  and  denunciatory, 
Mr.  Greeley  in  the  New  York  Tribune  demanding  foreign 
intervention,  and  declaring  to  Raymond  that  he  would  drive 
Lincoln  into  it.1 

Leading  officers  of  the  army  went  so  far  as  to  say  that 
"  both  the  army  and  the  government  needed  a  dictator."  2 
During  these  gloomy  days,  in  which  it  seemed  that  many  of 
the  leading  men  in  civil  and  military  life  lost  their  heads, 
and  were  ready  for  almost  any  change,  however  wild,  the 
President  was  calm,  patient,  tolerant  of  those  who  differed 
from  him,  and  hopeful.  At  this  crisis,  when  his  generals 
were  denouncing  each  other,  his  Cabinet  quarreling  and 
making  combinations  against  him,  Congress  factious,  for 
eign  nations  hostile  and  ready  to  recognize  the  Confederacy, 
and  some  in  high  position  calling  for  a  dictator,  it  is  not  too 

1.  Private  Journal  of  Henry  J.  Raymond,  printed  in  Scribner's  Magazine,  March, 
1880. 

2.  See  Letter  of  Lincoln  to  Hooker,  dated  January  26,  1863,  quoted  hereafter. 


304  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

much  to  say  that  Lincoln  bore  on  his  Atlantean  shoulders 
the  fate  of  the  republic,  that  his  firm,  vigorous  hand  saved 
the  country  from  anarchy  and  ruin. 

On  the  26th  of  January,  the  President  sent  the  following 
letter  to  General  Hooker  : 

ExECUTiyE  MANSION,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C., 

January  26,  1863. 

MAJOR  GENERAL  HOOKER. — General :  I  have  placed  you  at  the 
head  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac.  Of  course  I  have  done  this  upon 
what  appear  to  me  to  be  sufficient  reasons  ;  and  yet  I  think  it  best  for 
you  to  know  that  there  are  some  things  in  regard  to  which  I  am  not  satis 
fied  with  you.  I  believe  you  to  be  a  brave  and  skillful  soldier,  which  of 
course  I  like.  I  also  believe  that  you  do  not  mix  politics  with  your  pro 
fession,  in  which  you  are  right.  You  have  confidence  in  yourself,  which 
is  a  valuable  if  not  indispensable  quality.  You  are  ambitious,  which, 
within  reasonable  bounds,  does  good  rather  than  harm  ;  but  I  think  that, 
during  General  Burnside's  command  of  the  army,  you  have  taken  counsel 
of  your  ambition,  and  thwarted  him  as  much  as  you  could,  in  which  you 
did  a  great  wrong  to  the  country,  and  to  a  most  meritorious  and  honora 
ble  brother  officer.  I  have  heard,  in  such  a  way  as  to  believe  it,  of  your 
recently  saying  that  both  the  army  and  the  government  needed  a  dictator. 
Of  course,  it  was  not  for  this,  but  in  spite  of  it,  that.  I  have  given  you 
the  command.  Only  those  generals  who  gain  success  can  be  dictators. 
What  I  now  ask  of  you  is  military  success,  and  I  will  risk  the  dictator 
ship.  The  government  will  support  you  to  the  utmost  of  its  ability, 
which  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  it  has  done  and  will  do  for  all  com 
manders.  I  much  fear  that  the  spirit  which  you  have  aided  to  infuse 
into  the  army,  of  criticizing  their  commander  and  withholding  confidence 
from  him,  will  now  turn  upon  you.  I  shall  assist  you  as  far  as  I  can  to 
put  it  down.  Neither  you  nor  Napoleon,  if  he  were  alive  again,  could 
get  any  good  out  of  an  army  while  such  a  spirit  prevails  in  it.  And 
now,  beware  of  rashness.  Beware  of  rashness,  but,  with  energy  and 
sleepless  vigilance,  go  forward  and  give  us  victories. 

Yours,  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

Hooker  passed  three  months  in  preparation,  and  then 
suffered  the  terrible  defeat  of  Chancellorsville,  and  again 
was  the  brave  army  of  the  Potomac  beaten  by  superior  gen 
eralship.  Among  the  misfortunes  of  the  rebels  in  this  battle 
was  the  death  of  their  most  brilliant  soldier,  Stonewall 
Jackson.  It  was  the  nature  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  do  full  justice 


ANTIETAM  AND  CHANCELLORSVILLE.  305 

to  his  enemies.  His  heart  was  touched  by  the  death  of 
Jackson,  and  he  said  to  a  friend 1  who  praised  the  dead  : 
"  I  honor  you  for  your  generosity  to  one  who,  though  con 
tending  against  us  in  a  guilty  cause,  was  a  gallant  man.  Let 
us  forget  his  sins  over  his  fresh  made  grave." 

1.  Col.  J.  "W.  Forney,  editor. 


20 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  TIDE  TURNS. 

THE  CONSCRIPTION. —  WEST  VIRGINIA  ADMITTED. —  THE  WAR  POW 
ERS. —  SUSPENSION  OP  HABEAS  CORPUS. —  CASE  OF  VALLANDIG- 
HAM. —  GRANT'S  CAPTURE  OF  VICKSBURG. —  GETTYSBURG. —  LIN 
COLN'S  SPEECH. 

WE  now  approach  the  turning  point  in  this  great  civil 
war.  Up  to  1863,  the  fortunes  of  the  conflict  had  been  so 
varied  ;  victory  and  defeat  had  so  alternated,  that  neither 
party  to  the  struggle  could  point  to  anything  absolutely 
decisive.  After  the  Union  defeats  at  Fredericksburg  and 
Chancellorsville,  the  world  of  spectators  seemed  to  think 
the  probabilities  of  success  were  with  the  rebels.  But  in  the 
summer  of  1863,  the  tide  turned,  and  a  series  of  successes 
followed  the  national  armies,  which  rendered  their  triumph 
only  a  question  of  time.  Before  entering  upon  a  narration 
of  these  successes,  we  must  turn  for  a  brief  space  from  the 
camp  and  battle  field  to  the  halls  of  Congress. 

During  this  entire  conflict,  public  opinion  was  guided, 
and  largely  controlled,  by  the  pen  and  the  tongue  of  the 
President.  No  voice  was  so  potent  as  his,  either  in  Congress 
or  elsewhere,  to  create  and  guide  public  opinion.  His  admin 
istration  was  continually  assailed  by  the  democratic  party, 
and  criticised,  often  with  asperity  and  injustice,  by  the  lead 
ing  members  of  his  own  party.  The  great  leaders  of  the 
press  were  fault-finding,  unjust,  and  often  unfriendly.  This 
threw  upon  him,  in  addition  to  all  his  other  great  difficulties 
and  cares,  the  burden  of  explaining  and  defending  the 
measures  of  his  administration.  He  made  many  speeches, 

306 


THE  TIDE  TURNS.  307 

and  wrote  many  letters,  in  addition  to  his  messages  and  state 
papers.  His  frankness  and  sincerity,  his  unselfish  patriot 
ism,  and  his  great  ability  as  a  speaker  and  writer,  were  never 
more  strikingly  illustrated  than  in  those  speeches  and  writ 
ings. 

When  Congress  convened,  in  December,  1862,  the  Presi 
dent  communicated  the  fact  of  his  proclamation  of  the  22d 
of  September.  The  absolute  necessity  of  national  union 
was  never  presented  in  a  more  statesmanlike  manner  than  in 
this  message.  He  says  : 

"  A  nation  may  be  said  to  consist  of  its  territory,  its  people,  and  its  laws. 
The  territory  is  the  only  part  which  is  of  certain  duration.  '  One  genera 
tion  passeth  away,  and  another  generation  cometh,  but  the  earth  abideth 
forever.'  That  portion  of  the  earth's  surface  which  is  owned  and 
inhabited  by  the  people  of  the  United  States,  is  well  adapted  to  be  the 
home  of  one  national  family  ;  and  it  is  not  well  adapted  for  two,  or  more. 
Its  vast  extent,  and  its  variety  of  climate  and  productions,  are  of  advant 
age,  in  this  age,  for  one  people,  whatever  they  might  have  been  in  form 
er  ages.  Steam,  telegraphs,  and  intelligence,  have  brought  these  to  be 
an  advantageous  combination  for  one  united  people.  *  *  * 

*  There  is  no  line,  straight  or  crooked,  suitable  for  a  national 
boundary,  upon  which  to  divide.  Trace  through,  from  East  to  West, 
upon  the  line  between  the  free  and  slave  country,  and  we  shall  find  a 
little  more  than  one-third  of  its  length  are  rivers,  easy  to  be  crossed,  and 
populated,  or  soon  to  be  populated  thickly  upon  both  sides  ;  while  nearly 
all  its  remaining  length  are  merely  surveyor's  lines, over  which  people  may 
walk  back  and  forth,  without  any  consciousness  of  their  presence.  No 
part  of  this  line  can  be  made  any  more  difficult  to  pass  by  writing  it  down 
on  paper  or  parchment  as  a  national  boundary.  The  fact  of  separation, 
if  it  comes,  gives  up  on  the  part  of  the  seceding  section  the  fugitive 
slave  clause,  along  with  all  other  constitutional  obligations  upon  the  sec 
tion  seceded  from,  while  I  should  expect  no  treaty  stipulations  would 
ever  be  made  to  take  its  place. 

"  But  there  is  another  difficulty.  The  great  interior  region,  bounded 
east  by  the  Alleghanies,  north  by  the  British  dominions,  west  by  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  and  south  by  the  line  along  which  the  culture  of  corn 
and  cotton  meets,  and  which  includes  part  of  Virginia,  part  of  Tennes 
see,  all  of  Kentucky,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Illinois,  Mis 
souri,  Kansas,  Iowa,  Minnesota,  and  the  territories  of  Dakota,  Nebraska, 
and  part  of  Colorado,  already  has  above  ten  million  people,  and  will 
have  fifty  millions  within  fifty  years,  if  not  prevented  by  any  political 


308  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

folly  or  mistake.  It  contains  more  than  one-third  of  the  country  owned, 
by  the  United  States,  certainly  more  than  one  million  square  miles.  Once 
half  as  populous  as  Massachusetts  already  is,  it  would  have  more  than 
seventy-five  million  people.  A  glance  at  the  map  shows  that,  territo 
rially  speaking,  it  is  the  great  body  of  the  republic.  The  other  parts  are 
but  marginal  borders  to  it,  the  magnificent  region  sloping  west  from  the 
Rocky  Mountains  to  the  Pacific,  being  the  deepest,  and  also  the  richest  in 
undeveloped  resources.  In  the  production  of  provisions,  grains,  grasses,, 
and  all  which  proceed  from  them,  this  great  interior  region  is  naturally 
one  of  the  most  important  in  the  world.  Ascertain  from  statistics  the 
small  proportion  of  the  region  which  has,  as  yet,  been  brought  into  cul 
tivation,  and  also  the  large  and  rapidly  increasing  amount  of  its  pro 
ducts,  and  we  shall  be  overwhelmed  with  the  magnitude  of  the  prospect 
presented.  And  yet  this  region  has  no  sea-coast,  touches  no  ocean  any 
where.  As  part  of  one  nation,  its  people  may  find,  and  may  forever  find 
their  way  to  Europe  by  New  York,  to  South  America  and  Africa  by  New 
Orleans,  and  to  Asia  by  San  Francisco.  But  separate  our  common  country 
into  two  nations,  as  designed  by  the  present  rebellion,  and  every  man  of 
this  great  interior  region  is  thereby  cut  off  from  some  one  or  more  of 
these  outlets,  not,  perhaps,  by  a  physical  barrier,  but  by  embarrassing 
and  onerous  trade  regulations." 

Lincoln  uttered  the  convictions,  the  sentiments,  and  the 
unwavering  determination  of  a  vast  majority  of  the  people  of 
the  West,  when  he  declared  that  the  "  portion  of  the  earth's 
surface  called  the  United  States  is  adapted  to  be  the  home 
of  one  national  family,  and  not  for  two  or  more." 

Lincoln  had  come  to  be  recognized  as  not  only  the  lead 
ing  mind  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  but  of  the  republic,  and 
he  declared  with  authority  that  there  could  be  "  no  peace 
except  on  the  basis  of  national  unity."  He  closes  this  most 
statesmanlike  paper  with  these  words: 

"  I  do  not  forget  the  gravity  which  should  characterize  a  paper 
addressed  to  the  Congress  of  the  nation  by  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the 
nation.  Nor  do  I  forget  that  some  of  you  are  my  seniors,  nor  that  many 
of  you  have  more  experience  than  I  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs.  Yet 
I  trust  that  in  view  of  the  great  responsibility  resting  upon  me,  you  will 
perceive  no  want  of  respect  to  yourselves  in  any  undue  earnestness  I  may 
seem  to  display.  *  *  *  The  dogmas  of  the  quiet  past  are  inade 
quate  to  the  stormy  present.  The  occasion  is  piled  high  with  difficulty, 
and  we  must  rise  with  the  occasion.  As  our  case  is  new,  so  we  must 


THE  TIDE  TURNS.  309 

think  anew  and  act  anew.     We  must  disenthrall  ourselves,  and  then  we 
shall  save  our  country. 

"  Fellow  citizens,  we  cannot  escape  history.  We,  of  this  Congress 
and  this  administration,  will  be  remembered  in  spite  of  ourselves.  No 
personal  significance,  or  insignificance,  can  spare  one  or  another  of  us. 
The  fiery  trial  through  which  we  pass  will  light  us  down,  in  honor  or 
.dishonor,  to  the  latest  generation.  WTe  say  we  are  for  the  Union.  The 
world  will  not  forget  that  we  say  this.  We  know  how  to  save  the 
Union.  The  world  knows  we  do  know  how  to  save  it.  We — even  we 
•here — hold  the  power  and  bear  the  responsibility.  In  giving  freedom  to 
the  slave  we  assure  freedom  to  the  free — honorable  alike  in  what  we  give 
and  what  we  preserve.  We  shall  nobly  save,  or  meanly  lose,  the  last, 
best  hope  of  earth.  Other  means  may  succeed,  this  could  not  fail.  The 
way  is  plain,  peaceful,  generous,  just — a  way  which,  if  followed,  the 
world  will  forever  applaud,  and  God  must  forever  bless." 

At  this  session  of  Congress  an  enrollment  bill  providing 
that  all  able  bodied  citizens,  black  as  well  as  white,  should 
be  liable  to  military  duty,  and  subject  to  be  drafted  into 
service,  was  passed.  The  Confederates  had  nearly  a  year 
before  passed  a  much  more  stringent  conscription  law.  The 
democratic  party  opposed  vehemently  the  bill.  Senator 
Kennedy,  of  Maryland,  said  :  "  I  stand  in  the  midst  of  the 
ruins  of  the  republic.  I  deplore  that  I  can  see  no  hope 
from  the  black  gloomy  cloud  of  convulsion  and  ruin  by 
which  we  are  surrounded."  » 

A  law  was  also  passed  at  this  session  admitting  West 
Virginia  into  the  Union,  upon  condition  of  the  abolition  of 
slavery.  The  great  civil  war  called  into  exercise,  by  the 
Executive  and  Congress,  a  class  of  powers  called  war  pow 
ers  ;  powers  dormant  until  the  exigencies  arose  demanding 
their  exercise,  and  of  the  existence  of  which  many  of  the 
statesmen  of  the  republic  had  been  unconscious.  The  peo 
ple,  educated  to  an  appreciation  of  the  full  value  of  the 
quiet  securities  of  liberty  embraced  in  Magna  Charta,  and 
still  more  perfectly  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
were  always  jealous  of  the  exercise  of  extraordinary  pow 
ers.  Those  safeguards  of  liberty :  freedom  of  the  press, 
•liberty  of  speech,  personal  security  protected  by  the  writ  of 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  37th  Congress,  p.  1374. 


3IO  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

habeas  corpus,  an  independent  judiciary,  a  speedy  and  fair 
trial  by  jury,  the  old,  time-honored  principles  of  the  com 
mon  law  that  no  person  should  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty, 
or  property  but  by  due  and  impartial  process  of  law  and 
judgment  of  his  peers  ;  these  great  principles  were  the 
foundations  of  our  government.  They  were  revered  as  sacred, 
and  no  people  were  ever  more  jealous  or  watchful  of  every 
encroachment  upon  them.  In  these  principles  the  President, 
as  a  lawyer,  had  been  educated,  and  he  was  slow  and  reluc 
tant  to  assume  the  exercise  of  the  vast  and  novel  and  ill-de 
fined  powers  growing  out  of  insurrection  and  war.  Imper 
ative  necessity  forced  him  to  the  exercise  of  such  powers. 
The  rebels,  and  those  who  sympathized  with  them,  claimed 
all  the  rights  of  citizens.  They  claimed  that  even  while 
waging  war  against  the  Constitution,  they  should  enjoy  all 
the  rights  of  citizenship  under  it  ;  that  while  they  made  war 
on  the  government,  they  could  claim  its  protection  as  citi 
zens.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  reluctant  to  proclaim  martial  law, 
even  where  conspirators  were  plotting  treason  and  organ 
izing  rebellion.  He  suffered  the  rebels,  Breckenridge  and 
others,  to  talk  rebellion  and  organize  treason  at  the  national 
capital  without  arrest,  and  then  to  leave  and  join  the  rebel 
armies.  But  the  public  safety  finally  compelled  him  to  exer 
cise  the  powers  necessary  to  preserve  the  life  of  the  republic. 
He  saved  Maryland  to  the  Union,  and  prevented  a  bloody 
civil  war  among  its  citizens,  by  causing  General  McClellan 
to  arrest  the  Maryland  Legislature,  when  it  was  about  to 
pass  an  act  of  secession.  He  proclaimed  martial  law,  sus 
pended  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and  caused  persons  to  be 
summarily  arrested  who  held  criminal  intercourse  with  the 
enemy.  The  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  is 
authorized  by  the  Federal  Constitution,  "  when  in  cases  of 
rebellion  or  invasion  the  public  safety  may  require  it."  But 
who  is  to  judge  when  the  public  safety  does  require  it? 
Congress  may  authorize  the  Executive  to  exercise  this 
power.  But  the  exigency  and  necessity  for  its  exercise  may 
arise  when  Congress  is  not  in  session.  If  so,  may  the  Pres- 


THE  TIDE  TURNS.  3!  I 

ident,  or  a  military  commander,  do  it  when  and  where  public 
safety  demands  it  ?  These,  and  cognate  questions,  were 
most  earnestly  discussed  by  the  public  press,  in  Congress, 
and  before  judicial  tribunals  ;  and  these  discussions  may  be 
regarded  as  settling  the  question  that  the  President  may 
rightfully  exercise  this  power  when  and  where  such  necessity 
exists,  and  that  of  this  necessity  he  must  in  the  first  instance 
judge.  l 

The  case  of  Vallandigham,  who  was  arrested,  tried  by 
court  martial,  found  guilty  of  expressing  in  public  speeches 
disloyal  sentiments,  and  sentenced  to  confinement  during 
the  war,  was  very  much  discussed.  Public  meetings  were 
held  at  Albany,  New  York,  and  in  Ohio,  by  the  democratic 
friends  of  Vallandigham,  and  memorials  were  drawn  up  and 
presented  to  the  President,  asking  him  to  restore  Vallandig 
ham  to  liberty.  To  these  memorials  the  President  made  full 
and  careful  replies,  in  which,  with  the  clearness,  earnestness, 
and  great  ability  for  which  his  papers  were  distinguished, 
he  discussed  the  questions  involved.  These  papers  of  the 
President  went  far  towards  satisfying  the  public  mind  that 
such  arrests  were  but  the  proper  exercise  of  the  legal  powers 
of  the  Executive.  In  these  papers  there  is  exhibited  that 
clear,  simple  statement  and  argument,  by  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
always  made  himself  perfectly  understood  by  the  mass  of 
the  people,  and  by  which  he  rarely  failed  to  carry  conviction. 
,  He  said: 

' '  Of  how  little  value  the  constitutional  provisions  I  have  quoted  will 
be  rendered,  if  arrests  shall  never  be  made  until  defined  crimes  shall  have 
been  committed,  may  be  illustrated  by  a  few  notable  examples.  General 
John  C.  Breckenridge,  General  Robert  E.  Lee,  General  Joseph  E.  John 
ston,  General  John  B.  Magruder,  General  William  B.  Preston,  General 
Simon  B.  Buckner,  and  Commodore  Franklin  Buchanan,  now  occupying 
the  very  highest  places  in  the  rebel  war  service,  were  all  within  the  power 
of  the  government  since  the  rebellion  began,  and  were  nearly  as  well- 
known  to  be  traitors  then  as  now.  Unquestionably  if  we  had  seized  and 
held  them,  the  insurgent  cause  would  be  much  weaker.  But  no  one  of 

1.  See  opinion  of  Chief  Justice  Parsons.  Reprinted  in  McPherson's  u  History  of 
the  Rebellion,"  pp.  162-163. 


312  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

them  had  then  committed  any  crime  denned  in  the  law.  Every  one  of 
them,  if  arrested,  would  have  been  discharged  on  habeas  corpus  were  the 
writ  allowed  to  operate.  In  view  of  these  and  similar  cases,  I  think  the 
time  not  unlikely  to  come,  when  I  shall  be  blamed  for  having  made  too 
few  arrests  rather  than  too  many.  *  *  *  *  Long  experience  has 
shown  that  armies  cannot  be  maintained  unless  desertion  shall  be  pun 
ished  by  the  severe  penalty  of  death.  The  case  requires,  and  the  law 
and  the  Constitution  sanctions,  this  punishment.  Must  I  shoot  a  simple- 
minded  soldier-boy  who  deserts,  while  I  must  not  touch  a  hair  of  a  wily 
agitator  who  induces  him  to  desert  ?  This  is  none  the  less  injurious 
when  effected  by  getting  a  father,  or  brother,  or  friend  into  a  public 
meeting,  and  there  working  upon  his  feelings  till  he  is  persuaded  to 
write  the  soldier-boy  that  he  is  fighting  in  a  bad  cause,  for  a  wicked 
administration  of  a  contemptible  government,  too  weak  to  arrest  and 
punish  him  if  he  shall  desert.  I  think  that,  in  such  a  case,  to  silence  the 
agitator  and  save  the  boy  is  not  only  constitutional,  but  withal  a  great 
mercy." 

This  correspondence  satisfied  all  the  loyal  people  that 
these  war  powers  would  be  used  by  the  President  only  to 
the  extent  of  maintaining  the  government,  that  the  rights  of 
no  individual  would  be  wantonly  violated,  and  that  the 
liberties  of  the  people  were  entirely  safe  in  the  hands  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.1 

After  a  very  full  and  able  discussion  in  the  Senate  and 
in  the  House,  a  law  was  passed  on  the  3d  of  March,  1863, 
authorizing  the  President,  whenever  during  the  existence  of 
the  rebellion  the  public  safety  might  require,  to  suspend  the 
writ  of  habeas  corpus  throughout  the  United  States,  or  any 
part  thereof. 

The  President  often  spoke  upon  the  absolute  necessity 
that  our  country  should  be  the  home  of  "  one  national  fami 
ly,  and  no  more."  His  convictions  on  this  subject  so  ably 
presented  to  Congress  in  December,  1862,  were  often 
expressed.  To  restore  this  so  necessary  union,  the  President 
and  his  military  advisers  planned  the  campaign  of  1863.  To 
open  the  Mississippi  by  capturing  Vicksburg  was  the  great 
objective  point  of  the  campaign  in  the  West.  The  President 

1.  See  McPhcrson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  pp.  163-167,  for  this  correspondence 
In  full. 


THE  TIDE  TURNS.  313 

was  unquestionably  the  best  informed  person  in  the  repub 
lic  concerning  its  military  condition.  His  rooms  at  the 
White  House  were  full  of  maps  and  plans,  every  movement 
was  carefully  traced  on  these  maps,  and  no  subordinate  was 
so  completely  advised  of,  and  master  of  the  military  situa 
tion  as  the  Commander  in  Chief.  To  open  the  Mississippi, 
as  has  been  stated,  by  the  capture  of  the  stronghold  of 
Vicksburg,  was  the  great  objective  point  of  the  campaign  in 
the  West,  and  in  the  East  to  destroy  the  army  of  Lee,  and 
seize  the  rebel  capital. 

Lincoln  selected  General  Grant  to  lead  the  difficult  enter 
prise  against  Vicksburg.  There  were  those  high  in  posi 
tion,  who  at  that  time  charged  Grant  with  habits  of  intoxi 
cation,  and  sought  to  shake  the  confidence  of  the  President 
in  him.  To  such  Lincoln  replied:  "  If  Grant  is  a  drunkard 
I  wish  some  of  my  other  generals  would  give  the  same  evi 
dence  of  intoxication." 

On  the  2nd  of  February,  1863,  Grant  arrived  in  the  vicin 
ity  of  Vicksburg,  and  assumed  command.  After  various 
fruitless  expedients,  in  April,  he  finally  resolved  to  send  his 
army  by  land  from  Milliken's  Bend  to  a  point  below  Vicks 
burg,  and  to  run  his  transports  and  gunboats  past  and  below 
the  menacing  batteries  of  that  city.  A  large  fleet  of  iron 
clad  gunboats  and  transports  were  prepared,  protected  as 
far  as  possible  by  cotton  bales,  hay,  railroad  iron,  timber, 
,and  chains.  The  night  of  the  i6th  of  April  was  selected  for 
the  attempt.  Everything  was  in  readiness  before  dark.  The 
plan  was  that  the  iron-clads  should  pass  down  in  single  file 
— with  intervals  between  them,  and  when  opposite  the  bat 
teries,  should  engage  them,  and  that  then,  under  cover  of 
smoke,  the  transports  should  endeavor  to  pass. 

The  country  had  been  growing  impatient  of  the  long 
delays  at  Vicksburg.  The  cutting  of  the  canals  and  the  open 
ing  of  the  bayous  had  proved  failures.  All  the  attempts 
thus  far  to  flank  the  stronghold,  seemed  likely  to  prove  abor 
tive,  and  great  anxiety  existed  in  the  public  mind.  After  all 
these  failures,  Grant,  with  a  persistence  which  has  marked 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

his  whole  career,  conceived  a  plan  without  parallel  in  mili 
tary  history  for  its  boldness  and  daring.  This  was  to  march 
his  army  and  send  his  transportation  by  land  on  the  Louisi 
ana  side  of  the  Mississippi,  from  Milliken's  Bend  to  a  point 
below  Vicksburg ;  then  to  run  the  bristling  batteries  of 
that  rebel  Gibraltar,  exposed  to  its  hundreds  of  heavy  guns, 
with  his  transports  ;  then  to  cross  the  Mississippi  below 
Vicksburg,  and  returning,  attack  that  city  in  the  rear. 

The  crews  of  the  frail  Mississippi  steamers  used  as  trans 
ports,  conscious  of  the  hazardous  service,  with  one  excep 
tion  refused  to  go.  Volunteers  were  called  for  by  General 
Grant,  and  no  sooner  was  the  call  made,  than  from  the  noble 
army  of  the  West,  pilots,  engineers,  firemen,  and  deck-hands, 
offered  themselves  for  the  dangerous  adventure  in  such 
numbers,  that  it  became  necessary  to  select  those  needed 
from  the  crowd  of  volunteers  by  lot.  Such  was  the  gener 
ous  emulation  among  the  soldiers  to  participate  in  the  dan 
gerous  service,  that  one  Illinois  boy  who  had  drawn  the 
coveted  privilege  of  exposing  his  life,  was  offered  one  hun 
dred  dollars  in  greenbacks  for  his  chance  ;  but  he  refused 
to  take  it,  and  held  his  post  of  honor. 

Ten  o'clock  at  night  was  the  hour  at  which  the  fleet  was. 
to  start.  At  that  hour  the  camps  of  the  Union  army  were 
hushed  into  silence,  watching  with  intense  anxiety  the  result. 
All  was  obscurity  and  silence  in  front  of  the  city.  Soon  an 
indistinct,  shadowy  mass  was  seen,  dimly,  noiselessly  float 
ing  down  the  river.  It  was  the  flag-ship,  the  iron-clad  Ben- 
ton.  It  passed  on  into  the  darkness,  and  another  and 
another  followed,  until  ten  black  masses,  looking  like  spec 
tral  steamers,  came  out  of  the  darkness,  passed  by,  and  dis 
appeared  down  the  river.  No  sound  disturbed  the  stillness. 
Every  eye  was  fixed  on  the  space  in  front  of  the  city ;  every 
ear  intent,  expecting  each  moment  to  see  the  gleam  and 
flash  of  powder  and  fire,  and  hear  the  thunders  of  cannon. 
For  three-quarters  of  an  hour  the  silence  was  unbroken, 
when  first  came  a  sharp  line  of  light  from  the  extreme  right 
of  the  batteries,  and  in  an  instant  after,  the  whole  length  of 


THE  TIDE  TURNS.  315 

the  bluffs  was  one  blaze  of  fire  and  roll  of  crashing  thunder. 
The  light  exhibited  the  fleet  squarely  in  front  of  the  city; 
and  immediately  its  heavy  guns  were  heard  in  reply,  firing 
directly  upon  the  city.  Clouds  of  smoke  enveloped  the  gun 
boats,  and  then  the  transports,  putting  on  full  steam,  plunged 
down  the  river.  The  batteries  were  passed  in  an  hour  and 
a  quarter;  and  although  some  of  the  transports  were  injured 
and  one  set  on  fire,  no  person  on  either  of  them  was 
killed:  and  General  Grant  immediately  prepared  and  sent 
the  remaining  transports.  Meanwhile,  the  army  marched 
around  and  struck  the  river  below  Vicksburg,  nearly  oppo 
site  Grand  Gulf.  This  was  a  strong  position  on  the  east 
bank  of  the  Mississippi,  below  the  mouth  of  the  Big  Black. 
It  was  hoped  that  Admiral  Porter  with  the  gunboats  could 
reduce  the  batteries  at  Grand  Gulf,  after  which  the  troops 
would  be  taken  over  in  the  transports,  and  carry  the  place 
by  assault.  But,  after  nearly  five  hours  bombardment, 
Admiral  Porter  drew  off  his  fleet.  Grant,  after  consulting 
with  Porter,  adopted  a  new  expedient;  this  was  to  march  his 
troops  three  miles  below  Grand  Gulf,  and  after  night  the 
transports  were  to  run  these  batteries,  as  they  had  done  those 
of  Vicksburg.  When  darkness  came,  Porter  renewed  the 
attack  with  his  gunboats;  and  amidst  the  thunder  and  smoke 
of  this  attack,  the  transports  went  safely  by,  and  reaching 
the  camps  below,  cheered  the  soldiers  as  they  approached, 
by  responding  "  all's  well  "  to  their  anxious  inquiries.  In 
the  morning  they  were  in  readiness  to  transfer  the  army  to 
the  long  coveted  position  below  Vicksburg. 

Early  the  next  morning,  General  Grant,  on  the  Benton, 
led  the  way  to  a  landing  for  his  eager  army.  Going  ashore 
at  Bruinsburg,  he  found  faithful  and  intelligent  negroes  to 
guide  him  in  the  important  movements  which  were  now  to 
be  made.  Instantly  the  debarkation  of  the  troops  com 
menced,  and  the  line  of  march  was  taken  up  towards  Port 
Gibson.  Before  two  o'clock  the  next  morning,  May  i, 
1863,  the  enemy  was  encountered,  and  the  battle  of  Port 
Gibson  was  fought,  the  first  of  the  series  of  battles  and  vie- 


316  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

tories  resulting  in  the  investment  and  capture  of  Vicksburg. 
The  attitude  of  Grant  was  certainly  a  bold  one.  He  was  in 
the  enemy's  country,  a  fortified  city  above  him,  a  fortified 
city  below  him,  a  large  army  gathering  under  Johnston  to 
assail  him  and  relieve  Vicksburg,  with  another  large  army  to 
protect  and  garrison  its  fortifications.  Celerity  was  of  the 
highest  importance.  No  better  troops  ever  met  an  enemy 
than  those  he  commanded;  and  he  was  most  ably  seconded 
by  Sherman,  McClernand,  McPherson,  Logan,  Blair,  Oster- 
haus,  and  others. 

To  the  indomitable  will,  energy,  and  activity  of  Grant, 
striking  the  enemy  in  detail,  beating  him  in  every  field,  giv 
ing  him  no  time  for  concentration,  the  country  is  indebted 
for  these  wonderful  successes,  not  surpassed  by  any 
•other  achievements  in  military  history.  General  Grant 
seemed  fully  conscious  that  success  in  this,  the  boldest 
movement  of  the  war,  depended  upon  striking  quick  and 
rapid  blows,  and  hence  he  himself  set  the  example  of  taking 
no  baggage.  He  took  neither  horse  nor  servant,  nor  camp 
chest,  nor  overcoat,  nor  blanket;  his  entire  personal  bag 
gage,  according  to  Washburne,  who  accompanied  him  during 
the  six  eventful  and  decisive  days  from  his  landing,  was  a 
tooth  brush.  During  this  time,  his  fare  was  the  common 
soldier's  rations,  and  his  bed  the  ground,  with  no  covering 
but  the  sky. 

The  victory  at  Port  Gibson  was  so  important  that  General 
•Grant  issued  a  general  order  thanking  his  soldiers,  and  in  a 
few  spirited  words  advised  them  that  more  difficulties  and 
privations  were  before  them,  but  called  upon  them  to 
•endure  these  manfully.  "Other  battles,"  said  he,  " are  to 
be  fought  ;  let  us  fight  them  bravely.  A  grateful  country 
will  rejoice  at  our  success,  and  history  will  record  it  with 
immortal  honor."  Moving  rapidly  to  the  north,  General 
Grant  interposed  his  forces  between  the  army  of  Johnston, 
seeking  to  relieve  Vicksburg,  and  the  garrison  under  Pem- 
berton,  seeking  a  junction  with  Johnston.  Then  followed 
the  rapid  marches,  brilliant  with  gallant  charges  and  deeds 


THE  TIDE  TURNS.  317 

of  heroic  valor,  the  victories  won  in  quick  succession  at. 
Raymond,  on  the  i2th;  at  Jackson,  the  capital  of  Mississippi, 
on  the  i4th;at  Baker's  Creek  and  Champion  Hills  on  the 
i6th,  and  at  the  Big  Black  River  on  the  iyth,  and  finally 
closing  with  driving  the  enemy  into  his  works  at  Vicksburg,, 
and  with  the  aid  of  Admiral  Porter  and  the  gunboats,  com 
pletely  investing  the  city.  And  now,  on  the  i9th  of  May, 
Grant  and  his  army  were  before  the  stronghold.  Jefferson 
Davis,  conscious  of  the  importance  of  this  position,  had 
implored  every  man  who  could  do  so  to  march  to  Vicks 
burg.  General  Grant  now  determined  to  take  the  city  by 
assault.  On  the  22d  of  May,  the  attack  was  most  gallantly 
made.  The  assaulting  columns  moved  promptly  and  steadily 
upon  the  rebel  works,  and  stood  for  hours  under  a  wither 
ing  fire,  failing  only  because  the  position  could  not  possibly 
be  taken  by  storm. 

Then,  with  tireless  energy,  with  sleepless  vigilance  night 
and  day,  with  battery  and  rifle,  with  trench  and  mine,  the 
army  made  its  approaches,  until  the  enemy,  worn  out  with 
fatigue,  exhausted  of  food  and  ammunition,  and  driven  to 
despair,  finally  laid  down  their  arms. 

On  the  3d  of  July,  General  Grant  received  a  communica 
tion  from  Lieutenant-General  Pemberton,  commanding  the 
rebel  forces,  proposing  an  armistice  and  commissioners  to 
arrange  terms  of  capitulation.  This  correspondence  resulted 
in  the  surrender  of  the  city  and  garrison  of  Vicksburg  on 
the  4th  of  July,  1863.  This  capture  and  the  preceding  bat 
tles  resulted  in  a  loss  to  the  rebels  of  thirty-seven  thousand 
taken  prisoners,  including  fifteen  general  officers;  ten  thou 
sand  killed  and  wounded,  and  ammunition  for  sixty  thousand 
men. 

Thus  perseverance,  skill,  and  valor  triumphed.  The 
stronghold  of  the  Mississippi  was  taken.  No  language  can 
describe  the  tumultuous  joy  which  thrilled  the  hearts  of  the 
gallant  men  who  had  won  this  great  prize.  The  exultation 
of  the  army  is  illustrated  in  the  glowing  language  of  the 


318  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

young  and  brave  McPherson,  in  his  congratulatory  address 
issued  on  the  4th  of  July. 

"The  achievements  of  this  hour,"  said  he, "  will  give  a 
new  meaning  to  this  memorable  day:  and  Vicksburg  will 
heighten  the  glow  in  the  patriot's  heart  which  kindles  at  the 
mention  of  Bunker  Hill  and  Yorktown.  The  dawn  of  a 
conquered  peace  is  breaking  before  you.  The  plaudits  of 
an  admiring  world  will  hail  you  wherever  you  go." 

President  Lincoln  fully  comprehended  what  he  termed 
"the  almost  unappreciable  services  "of  Grant  in  the  capture 
of  Vicksburg.  He  wrote  to  him  the  following  letter,  which 
illustrates  the  generous  feelings  of  his  heart: 

"  My  dear  General:  I  do  not  remember  that  you  and  I  ever  met  per 
sonally.  I  write  this  now  as  a  grateful  acknowledgment  for  the  almost 
inestimable  service  you  have  done  the  country.  I  wish  to  say  a  word 
further.  When  you  first  reached  the  vicinity  of  Vicksburg,  I  thought 
you  should  do  what  you  finally  did,  march  the  troops  across  the  neck, 
run  the  batteries  with  the  transports,  and  thus  go  below;  and  I  never 
had  any  faith  except  a  general  hope  that  you  knew  better  than  I,  that 
the  Yazoo  Pass  expedition  and  the  like  could  succeed.  When  you  got 
below  and  took  Port  Gibson,  Grand  Gulf,  and  vicinity,  I  thought  you 
should  go  down  the  river  and  join  General  Banks;  and  when  you  turned 
northward,  east  of  the  Big  Black,  I  thought  it  was  a  mistake.  I  now 
wish  to  make  the  personal  acknowledgment  that  you  were  right  and  I 
was  wrong." 

No  military  enterprise  recorded  in  history  presented 
greater  difficulties  to  be  overcome,  none  the  success  of  which 
was  ever  more  fatal  to  an  enemy,  nor  is  there  any  which 
exhibits  in  a  higher  degree,  courage,  endurance,  military 
skill,  bold  conception,  fertility  of  resource,  and  rapidity  of 
execution,  than  that  which  triumphed  in  the  fall  of  Vicks 
burg.  Take  it  altogether  it  was  perhaps  the  most  brilliant 
operation  of  the  war,  and  establishes  the  reputation  of  Grant 
as  one  of  the  greatest  military  leaders  of  any  age. 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  armies  near  Washington.  After 
the  defeat  of  the  Union  army  at  Chancellorsville,  Lee 
assumed  the  offensive,  and  advanced  again  into  Maryland. 
He  now  made  the  greatest  preparations  for  striking  a  deci- 


THE  TIDE  TURNS.  319 

sive  blow,  and  hoped  to  carry  the  war  into  Pennsylvania  and 
the  North.  Hooker,  marching  on  an  interior  line,  covered 
Washington. 

On  the  28th  of  June,  General  Lee,  having  entered  Penn 
sylvania,  occupied  Chambersburg.  Learning  that  Hooker's 
army  had  crossed  the  Potomac  and  was  advancing  north 
ward,  he  gave  orders  for  the  concentration  of  his  forces  at 
Gettysburg.  On  the  27th,  General  Hooker,  in  consequence 
of  a  refusal  by  Halleck  to  order  the  troops  at  Harper's  Ferry 
to  join  him,  asked  to  be  relieved,  and  Halleck  gladly  issued 
the  order  by  which  he  was  relieved,  and  the  command  of  the 
army  transferred  to  General  Meade.  On  that  day,  the  head 
quarters  of  the  Union  army  were  at  Frederick  City,  and  those 
of  the  slaveholder's  army  were  at  Hagerstown.  The  Union 
force  was  thus  interposed  between  the  rebels,  and  Baltimore 
and  Washington.  On  the  3oth,  General  Meade  issued  an 
address  to  his  army,  in  which  he  pointed  out  the  important 
issue  involved  in  the  approaching  conflict.  "  Homes,  fire 
sides,  and  domestic  altars  are  involved.  The  army  has  fought 
well  heretofore;  it  is  believed  it  will  fight  more  desperately 
and  bravely  than  ever." 

On  Wednesday,  General  Reynolds  of  the  First  Corps, 
marching  directly  through  the  town  of  Gettysburg,  came 
unexpectedly  upon  the  enemy.  The  heroic  General  Wads- 
worth,  who  had  left  his  princely  estate  on  the  banks  of  the 
Genessee,  in  Western  New  York,  to  offer  himself  as  a 
volunteer  for  liberty  and  union,  led  the  advance,  the  divi 
sion  of  General  Doubleday,  one  of  the  subordinates  of 
Anderson  at  Fort  Sumter,  followed  and  formed  on  the  left, 
with  Robinson  on  the  right.  On  discovering  the  enemy  in 
force,  Reynolds  sent  word  to  Howard  to  hasten  up  the 
Eleventh;  that  Eleventh,  that  since  Chancellorsville  had 
been  in  disgrace;  a  disgrace  that  must  now  be  wiped  out. 

The  advance  encountered  a  heavy  force  of  the  enemy, 
and  was  forced  back,  but  retired  in  good  order.  The  enemy 
rashly  pressing  too  far  on  the  center,  the  left  closed  in  upon 
them,  and  took  many  prisoners.  As  General  Reynolds  was 


32O  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

pressing  up  to  the  front,  he  was  killed  by  a  sharpshooter.  At 
i  p.  M.,  the  gallant  Howard,  riding  in  advance  of  his  corps, 
reached  the  field  and  assumed  command,  leaving  his  corps  in 
charge  of  the  gallant  young  soldier  and  eloquent  German 
orator,  Carl  Schurz.  The  death  of  Reynolds  left  Doubleday 
in  command  of  the  First  Corps.  At  half-past  two,  from  the 
heights  of  Cemetery  Hill,  could  be  seen  the  long  line  of  rebel 
gray-backs  under  Ewell,  the  famous  brigade  which  Stone 
wall  Jackson  had  so  often  led  to  victory.  As  they  advanced 
they  were  met  by  a  fire  so  sharp  as  to  cause  them  to  fall 
back.  Twice  the  rebels  were  repulsed,  but  being  re-enforced, 
the  remnants  of  the  First  Corps  were  ordered  back  to  the 
town.  In  moving,  the  left  of  the  Eleventh  was  exposed,  and 
a  heavy  rebel  advance  compelled  it  to  fall  back  in  some  con 
fusion.  The  enemy  pursued  and  took  possession  of  the 
town,  while  the  two  corps  took  possession  of  the  western 
slope  of  the  hill. 

While  the  Union  troops  were  being  driven  by  superior 
numbers  through  the  town,  a  rapid  and  general  charge  might 
possibly  have  destroyed  these  two  corps;  but  it  was  not  made, 
and  their  commander,  the  one-armed  hero  Howard,  posted 
them  on  a  commanding  eminence  south  of  the  town,  called 
Cemetery  Hill,  and  prepared  for  the  shock.  When  the  line 
of  gray  again  advanced,  it  met  a  shower  of  balls  and  shells 
which  arrested  its  progress.  It  had  been  a  fearful  and 
bloody  fight;  one  single  brigade,  which  under  Wadsworth 
held  the  left,  going  into  battle  with  one  thousand,  eight  hun 
dred  and  twenty  men,  came  out  with  only  seven  hundred. 

Thus  ended  the  first  day's  conflict.  Each  army  was  being 
concentrated  as  rapidly  as  possible.  Howard  had  seized  and 
occupied  Cemetery  Hill,  south  and  a  little  east  of  the  village. 
To  the  right  of  it,  the  hills  extended  to  Rock  Creek,  and 
across  this  was  Wolf  Hill ;  while  to  the  left,  the  hills 
extended  south,  and  bent  a  little  westward  to  the  Round 
Top.  The  Union  army  was  posted  on  these  hills,  in  shape 
like  a  crescent,  with  its  center  on  Cemetery  Hill,  its  left 
extending  to  Round  Top,  and  its  right  to  Rock  Creek.  It 


THE  TIDE  TURNS.  32! 

had  the  advantage  of  position,  and  was  so  placed  that  the 
wings  and  center  could  readily  support  each  other. 

At  dark  on  Wednesday  evening,  the  Third  and  Twelfth 
Corps  came  in  and  were  posted,  the  former  on  the  ridge 
extending  south  and  to  the  left  of  Cemetery  Hill,  and  the 
latter  on  the  same  ridge  as  it  curved  to  the  right.  The  Third 
came  up  during  Wednesday  night,  and  the  Fifth  at  10  o'clock 
Thursday  morning.  At  n  o'clock  at  night,  General  Meade 
arrived  upon  the  field  and  placed  the  troops  in  order  of  bat 
tle.  Howard  with  the  Eleventh,  and  what  was  left  of  the 
First  and  the  Second  under  the  gallant  Hancock,  constituted 
the  center.  The  Twelfth  under  Slocum  held  the  right.  The 
Third  under  Sickles,  and  the  Fifth,  after  its  arrival,  were 
placed  on  the  extreme  left.  The  Union  army  was  so  com 
pact,  that  troops  could  be  readily  removed  from  either  wing 
to  the  other,  or  to  the  center,  as  they  might  be  needed. 
General  Meade  had  his  headquarters  on  the  ridge,  in  the 
rear  of  the  cemetery,  and  more  than  one  hundred  guns  brist 
led  along  the  crest  of  these  hills  fronting  the  enemy,  and 
were  confronted  by  one  hundred  and  fifty  guns  of  the  rebels. 
An  effort  was  made  to  induce  Meade  to  assume  the  offensive 
and  attack  on  Thursday  morning,  pouring  his  whole  army  on 
the  rebel  center,  and  smashing  through,  dividing  it  into  two 
parts;  but  Meade  wisely  preferred  to  await  the  attack  in  his 
strong  position.  Thus  the  bright  July  morning  wore  away, 
and  no  movement  of  importance  was  made  until  near  the 
middle  of  the  afternoon. 

Lee  had  ordered  a  general  attack  by  Longstreet  on  the 
Union  left  and  center,  to  be  followed  by  Hill.  While  pre 
parations  were  being  made  in  the  rebel  army  for  this  move 
ment,  Sickles  sent  Berdan's  regiment  of  sharp-shooters  into 
the  woods  in  his  front,  and  they,  advancing  a  mile,  descried 
the  gray-backs  moving  large  masses  to  turn  the  Union  left. 
Longstreet  was  bringing  his  whole  corps,  nearly  a  third  of 
the  slaveholder's  army,  to  precipitate  it  upon  the  Union  left. 
Sickles  immediately  moved  out  and  occupied  another  ridge, 
which  he  thought  a  more  commanding  position  than  the  one 

21 


322  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

in  which  he  had  been  placed,  but  which  did  not  connect  with 
the  main  force.  His  left  rested  upon  Round  Top  hill.  On 
came  the  rebels,  and  both  armies  opened  with  artillery.  Then 
came  the  wild  yell,  and  the  charge  of  the  gray-backs  was 
met  by  a  storm  of  grape  and  canister,  and  their  line  shat 
tered  and  sent  whirling  back;  immediately  another  line  came 
from  the  forest,  and  another  and  weightier  charge  was 
approaching.  General  Warren,  who  as  chief  of  staff  was 
watching  the  fight,  sent  for  re-enforcements.  Sedgwick  and 
the  fighting  Sixth  were  not  yet  available.  Sickles  held  on 
desperately;  aid  after  aid  was  dispatched  for  help;  but  from 
the  clouds  of  smoke  and  flame  it  was  seen  that  Sickles 
was  being  pushed  back.  He  finally  yielded  so  far  as  to 
occupy  his  first  position,  and  the  Fifth  Corps  came  to  his 
support,  while  the  brigades,  winding  down  among  the  rocks 
to  the  front,  braced  up  his  lines,  and  like  a  rock  turned  back 
the  assaulting  columns.  Longstreet  was  repulsed,  and  then 
Anderson  moved  upon  the  Union  center.  With  massed 
columns,  and  the  well  known  yell  with  which  the  rebels  ever 
charged,  they  come  swarming  on.  Hancock  repelled  the 
assault.  Sickles,  severely  wounded,  was  borne  from  the 
front,  and  Birney,  the  abolitionist,  assumed  command. 

The  conflict  in  the  center  raged  fiercely.  Hancock  was 
wounded  in  the  thigh,  and  Gibbon  in  the  shoulder.  The 
First  and  Second  wavered;  the  rebels  pressed  to  the  muzzle 
of  the  batteries,  shot  down  the  artillery  horses,  and  the  fight 
was  hand  to  hand,  when  the  banners  of  the  welcome  Sixth 
Corps,  under  the  brave  Sedgwick,  came  up.  Although  wearied 
with  a  march  of  thirty-two  miles  in  seventeen  hours,  they 
hurried  forward  with  shouts  to  the  rescue,  and  the  enemy 
were  hurled  back,  repulsed — destroyed.  The  right  had  been 
weakened  to  sustain  the  left  and  center;  and  now  Ewell  made 
a  dash  upon  Slocum  on  the  extreme  right.  For  a  short  time 
the  attack  was  most  ferocious;  but  a  part  of  the  Sixth  and 
some  of  the  First  came  again  at  the  critical  moment,  and  the 
enemy,  although  they  had  succeeded  in  taking  some  posi 
tions  held  by  Slocum,  were  finally  driven  back,  and  the  day 


THE  TIDE  TURNS.  323 

•closed  with  the  rebels  repulsed  from  every  part  of  the  field. 
It  had  been  a  bloody  day.  Sickles's  and  Hancock's  corps 
had  been  badly  shattered,  both  these  commanders  wounded, 
and  Sickles  had  a  leg  shot  off.  For  miles,  every  house  and 
barn  was  filled  with  the  wounded  and  the  dying.  Thursday 
had  gone  and  yet  the  result  was  not  decided.  Friday  came, 
and  Northern  persistence  was  to  crown  with  victory  the  three 
days  struggle. 

Early  in  the  morning  a  file  of  soldiers  marched  slowly  to 
the  rear,  bearing  tenderly  upon  a  stretcher  the  heroic  Sickles; 
yesterday  leading  his  corps  with  the  dash  and  spirit  for 
which  he  was  ever  distinguished;  to-day,  with  his  right  leg 
amputated,  grave  and  stoical,  his  cap  drawn  over  his  face, 
and  a  cigar  in  his  mouth.  The  enemy  opened  at  daylight 
with  artillery.  At  dawn,  General  Slocum  made  an  attack  on 
Ewell,  who  commanded,  it  will  be  remembered,  Stonewall 
Jackson's  men,  and  the  fight  was  maintained  with  equal  spirit 
on  both  sides,  Slocum  being  aided  by  Sykes's  and  Hum- 
phreys's  divisions  of  the  Third  Corps.  Swell's  forces  were 
•at  length  driven  back,  and  at  eleven  o'clock,  A.  M.,  there 
was  quiet  on  the  bloody  field. 

It  has  been  stated  that  the  key  to  the  Union  position 
was  Cemetery  Hill.  Lee  determined  to  make  a  desperate 
effort- to  get  possession  of  this  hill.  With  this  purpose  he 
directed  upon  it  the  concentric  fire  of  more  than  one  hun 
dred  guns,  ranged  in  a  half  circle.  The  lull  had  continued 
until  nearly  i  p.  M.  Meade,  Howard,  and  other  leaders 
were  watching  for  the  attack,  when  at  one  o'clock,  the  thun 
der  of  a  hundred  heavy  guns  burst  upon  the  position.  It  was 
held  by  the  Eleventh  and  Twelfth  Corps.  The  storm  came 
suddenly.  Soldiers  and  officers  worn  with  battle  and  seeking 
rest  were  scattered  upon  the  grass.  Many  were  struck  as  they 
lay;  some  died  with  cigars  in  their  mouths;  some  at  their  din 
ners  on  the  crest  of  the  hill,  and  some  with  letters  and  pho 
tographs  of  friends  in  their  hands;  taking  a  last  fond  look 
before  the  battle  which  all  knew  was  to  be  decisive,  and  fatal 
to  many.  Horses  were  shot  down  as  they  stood  quietly  wait- 


324  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ing  for  their  riders  to  mount.  The  air  in  an  instant  was  filled 
with  missiles  and  splinters;  the  earth  and  rocks  torn  up  and 
shattered;  the  air  filled  with  clouds  of  dust;  the  branches  of 
trees  were  torn  off,  and  the  grave  stones  and  monuments 
scattered  in  wild  confusion.  Within  five  minutes  after  the 
terrific  rain  of  death  began,  the  hill  was  cleared  in  all  its 
unsheltered  places  of  every  living  thing.  All  but  the  dead 
sought  shelter.  For  an  hour  and  a  half,  this  terrible  concen 
trated  fire  on  Cemetery  Hill  was  continued,  and  was  replied 
to  with  equal  vigor  by  the  batteries  on  the  ridge  and  range 
of  hills.  After  the  cannonade  had  continued  about  three 
hours,  General  Howard  slackened  his  fire  to  allow  his  guns 
to  cool.  It  was  supposed  by  the  enemy  that  our  batteries 
were  silenced,  and  that  the  time  for  an  irresistible  charge  had 
come.  The  divisions  of  Virginians  under  General  Picket 
led  the  advance,  supported  by  large  bodies  of  other  troops. 
As  the  leading  columns  of  the  advance  emerged  from  the 
woods  and  became  fully  exposed  to  the  Union  fire,  they 
wavered.  But  Picket's  brigades  did  not  falter;  although  they 
were  exposed  to  the  terrific  fire  of  grape,  canister,  and  shell 
from  at  least  forty  guns,  with  a  bravery  worthy  of  old  Vir 
ginia,  they  still  held  on  their  way  steady  and  firm,  closing  up 
their  ranks  as  their  comrades  were  cut  down.  They  crossed 
the  Emmittsburg  road,  and  approached  the  masses  of  in 
fantry.  General  Gibbon,  then  in  command  of  the  Second 
Corps,  walked  along  his  line  bare-headed,  shouting:  "  Hold 
your  fire,  boys,  they  are  not  near  enough  yet."  Still  they 
came  on,  and  with  fixed  bayonets  swept  up  to  the  rifle  pits. 
"  Now  fire  !  "  thundered  Gibbon.  A  blaze  of  death  all 
along  the  line  of  the  Second  Corps  followed;  down  fell  the 
rebels,  but  the  survivors  did  not  yet  falter;  they  charged  on 
the  pits,  pressing  up  to  the  very  muzzles  of  the  artillery; 
but  here  they  were  met  with  such  storms  of  grape  and 
canister,  that  the  survivors  threw  down  their  arms  and  sur 
rendered,  rather  than  run  the  gauntlet  of  the  retreat.  Three 
thousand  prisoners  were  taken.  The  result  is  thus  stated 
by  General  Meade  in  a  dispatch  dated  at  8:30  p.  M.  : 


THE  TIDE  TURNS.  325 

"  The  enemy  opened  at  one  o'clock,  p.  M.,  from  about  one  hundred 
and  fifty  guns.  They  concentrated  upon  my  left  center,  continuing  with 
out  intermission  for  about  three  hours,  at  the  expiration  of  which  time  they 
assaulted  my  left  center  twice,  being  upon  both  occasions  handsomely 
repulsed  with  severe  loss  to  them,  leaving  in  our  hands  nearly  three 
thousand  prisoners."  ! 

When  the  repulse  was  complete,  whole  companies  and 
regiments  threw  down  their  arms  and  surrendered,  to  avoid 
the  terrific  fire  to  which  they  were  exposed.  The  battle  was 
over.  The  army  of  the  Potomac  had  again  vindicated  its 
bravery  and  its  endurance.  As  General  Meade  rode  proudly 
yet  sadly  over  the  bloody  field,  a  band  passing,  struck  up, 
"  Hail  to  the  Chief." 

The  next  morning  was  as  sweet,  fresh,  and  balmy,  as 
though  the  storm  of  death  had  not  been  sweeping  for  three 
long  days  over  these  quiet,  pastoral  Pennsylvania  hills  and 
valleys.  Alas  !  must  the  historian  forever,  to  the  last  period 
of  recorded  time,  recount  these  terrible  scenes  of  slaughter, 
suffering,  and  death  ! 

Lee  was  in  no  condition  to  renew  the  attack.  His  ammu 
nition  was  short,  the  spirit  of  his  army  broken,  and  yet  Meade 
made  no  vigorous  pursuit.  The  rebel  loss  was  fourteen 
thousand  prisoners,  and  probably  twenty-five  thousand  in 
killed,  wounded,  and  missing.  The  Union  loss  was  about 
twenty-three  thousand  in  all.  Few  battles  in  ancient  or 
modern  times  have  been  more  severely  contested;  there  have 
'been  few  where  greater  numbers  were  engaged,  and  where 
there  was  a  greater  loss  of  life;  none  where  more  heroic 
valor  was  displayed  on  both  sides.  Had  Sheridan,  or 
Grant,  or  McPherson,  commanded  in  place  of  Meade,  it  is 
believed  Lee's  army  would  never  have  recrossed  the  Poto 
mac. 

We  have  seen  with  how  grateful  a  heart  Lincoln  returned 
thanks  to  Grant  and  his  brave  officers  and  soldiers  in  the 
West.  He  received  the  intelligence  of  the  victory  of  the 
army  of  the  Potomac  with  emotions  not  less  warm.  On  the 
4th  of  July,  he  issued  the  following  announcement: 

1.  Military  and  Naval  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  404.    See  Meade' s  Report. 


326  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  The  President  of  the  United  States  announces  to  the  country,  that 
the  news  from  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  up  to  10  o'clock  P.  M.  of  the 
3d,  is  such  as  to  cover  the  army  with  the  highest  honor — to  promise 
great  success  to  the  cause  of  the  Union — and  to  claim  the  condolence  of 
all  for  the  many  gallant  fallen;  and  that  for  this,  he  especially  desires 
that  on  this  day,  '  He  whose  will,  not  ours,  should  ever  be  done,'  be 
everywhere  remembered  and  reverenced  with  the  prof oundest  gratitude."1 

On  the  evening  of  the  4th  of  July,  the  popular  exultation 
over  these  successes  found  expression  in  a  serenade  to  the 
President.  Mr.  Lincoln  said:  "I  do  most  sincerely  thank 
Almighty  God  for  the  occasion  of  this  call;  "  and  ever  mind 
ful  of  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,, 
which  were  the  basis  of  his  political  creed,  he  said:  "  How 
long  ago  is  it  ?  Eighty  odd  years  since,  on  the  4th  of  July, 
for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world,  a  nation  by  its 
representatives  assembled,  and  declared  as  a  self-evident 
truth,  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  That  was  the  birthday 
of  the  United  States  of  America."  He  then  alluded  to  the 
other  extraordinary  events  in  American  history  which  had 
occurred  on  the  4th  of  July — the  death  of  Jefferson  and 
Adams  on  that  day,  and  said:  "And  now  at  this  last  4th  of 
July  just  passed,  we  have  a  gigantic  rebellion,  at  the  bottom 
of  which,  is  an  effort  to  overthrow  the  principle  that  all  men 
are  created  equal.  We  have  the  surrender  of  a  most  impor 
tant  position  and  an  army  on  that  very  day."  And  then  he 
alluded  proudly  and  gratefully  to  the  battles  in  Pennsylvania, 
on  the  ist,  2nd,  and  3rd  of  July,  as  victories  over  the 
cohorts  of  those  who  opposed  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence. 

On  the  1 5th  of  July,  the  President  issued  his  proclama 
tion,  breathing  throughout  a  spirit  of  grateful  reverence  to 
God,  of  supreme  love  of  country  and  of  liberty,  and  sym 
pathy  with  the  afflicted  and  the  suffering.  He  said: 

"  It  has  pleased  Almighty  God  to  hearken  to  the  supplications  and 

prayers  of  an  afflicted  people,  and  to  vouchsafe  to  the  army  and  the  navy 

of  the  United  States,  victories  on  the  land  and  on  the  sea,  so  signal  and 

so  effective,  as  to  furnish  reasonable  ground  for  augmented  confidence 

1.  Military  and  Naval  History  of  the  War,  p.  505. 


THE  TIDE  TURNS. 

that  the  Union  of  these  States  will  be  maintained,  their  Consti! 
served,  and  their  peace  and  prosperity  permanently  restored.  But  these 
victories  have  been  accorded  not  without  sacrifice  of  life,  limb,  health,  and 
liberty,  incurred  by  brave,  loyal,  and  patriotic  citizens.  Domestic  afflic 
tion,  in  every  part  of  the  country,  follows  in  the  train  of  these  fearful 
bereavements.  It  is  meet  and  right  to  recognize  and  confess  the  presence 
of  the  Almighty  Father,  and  the  power  of  His  hand,  equally  in  these 
triumphs  and  these  sorrows."  l 

He  then  invited  the  people  to  assemble  on  the  4th  of 
August,  for  thanksgiving,  praise,  and  prayer,  and  to  render 
homage  to  the  Divine  Majesty,  for  the  wonderful  things  He 
had  done  in  the  nation's  behalf;  and  he  called  upon  the  peo 
ple  to  invoke  His  Holy  Spirit  to  subdue  the  anger  which  had 
produced  and  so  long  sustained  a  needless  and  cruel  rebel 
lion;  to  change  the  hearts  of  the  insurgents;  to  guide  the 
councils  of  the  government  with  wisdom,  and  to  visit  with 
tender  care  and  consolation  those  who  through  the  vicissi 
tudes  of  battles  and  sieges  had  been  brought  to  suffer  in 
mind,  body,  or  estate,  and  finally  to  lead  the  whole  nation 
through  the  paths  of  repentance  and  submission  to  the 
Divine  Will,  to  unity  and  fraternal  peace. 

With  these  most  important  victories  East  and  West,  a  load 
was  lifted  from  the  troubled  heart  of  the  President.  His 
form,  bowed  and  almost  broken  with  anxiety,  once  more  was 
erect;  his  eye  grew  visibly  brighter,  and  his  whole  aspect 
became  again  hopeful.  But  it  is  not  proper  to  suppress  the 
-fact  that  he  was  greatly  chagrined  that  Meade  permitted  Lee 
and  his  army  again  to  escape  across  the  Potomac. 

In  the  autumn  of  this  year  of  battles  and  of  Union  vic 
tories,  the  ground  adjoining  the  village  cemetery  of  Gettys 
burg,  a  part  of  the  field  on  which  this  great  battle  was 
fought,  was  purchased,  and  prepared  for  consecration  as  a 
national  burying  ground  for  the  gallant  soldiers  who  fell  in 
that  conflict.  Here  in  this  little  grave  yard, 

"  The  rude  forefathers  of  the  hamlet  sleep." 

Here,  too,  slept  the  hosts  of  dead  of  one  of  the  great  battles 

1.  Military  and  Naval  History,  p.  408. 


328  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  the  world;  a  battle  which  saved  the  republic,  and  in 
which  heroes  and  patriots  worthy  of  Thermopylae  or  Mara 
thon  had  given  life  for  their  country. 

Here,  on  the  ipth  of  November,  with  solemn,  touching, 
and  most  impressive  ceremonies,  this  ground  was  conse 
crated  to  its  pious  purpose.  The  President,  his  Cabinet, 
the  officials  of  the  state  of  Pennsylvania,  governors  of  states, 
foreign  ministers,  officers  of  the  army  and  navy,  soldiers  and 
citizens,  gathered  in  great  numbers  to  witness  the  proceed 
ings.  Edward  Everett,  late  Secretary  of  State,  and  Senator 
from  Massachusetts,  an  orator  and  scholar  whose  renown 
had  extended  over  the  world,  was  selected  to  pronounce  the 
oration.  He  was  a  polished  and  graceful  speaker,  and 
worthy  of  the  theme  and  the  occasion.  President  Lincoln, 
while  in  the  cars  on  his  way  from  the  White  House  to  the 
battlefield,  was  notified  that  he  would  be  expected  to  make 
some  remarks  also.  Asking  for  some  paper,  a  rough  sheet 
of  foolscap  was  handed  to  him,  and,  retiring  to  a  seat  by 
himself,  with  a  pencil,  he  wrote  the  address  which  has 
become  so  celebrated;  an  address  which  for  appropriate 
ness  and  eloquence,  for  pathos  and  beauty,  for  sublimity  in 
sentiment  and  expression,  has  hardly  its  equal  in  English  or 
American  literature.  Everett's  oration  was  a  polished  speci 
men  of  consummate  oratorical  skill.  It  was  memorized,  and 
recited  without  recurring  to  a  note.  It  was  perhaps  too 
artistic;  so  much  so,  that  the  audience  sometimes  during  its 
delivery  forgot  the  heroic  dead  to  admire  the  skill  of  the 
speaker  before  them.  When  at  length  the  New  England 
orator  closed,  and  the  cheers  in  his  honor  had  subsided,  an 
earnest  call  for  Lincoln  was  heard  through  the  vast  crowd  in 
attendance.  Slowly,  and  very  deliberately,  the  tall,  homely 
form  of  the  President  rose;  simple,  rude,  his  careworn  face 
now  lighted  and  glowing  with  intense  feeling.  All  uncon 
scious  of  himself,  absorbed  with  recollections  of  the  heroic 
dead,  he  adjusted  his  spectacles,  and  read  with  the  most 
profound  feeling  the  following  address: 


THE  TIDE  TURNS.  329 

"  Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth  upon  this 
•continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  pro 
position  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

"  Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  warv  testing  whether  that 
nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can  long  endure. 
We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war.  We  are  met  to  dedi- 
c^te  a  portion  of  it  as  the  final  resting-place  of  those  who  here  gave 
their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and 
proper  that  we  should  do  this. 

"  But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  cannot  dedicate — we  cannot  consecrate 
— we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who 
struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our  power  to  add  or 
detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember  what  we  say  here, 
but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living, 
rather  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work  that  they  have 
thus  far  so  nobly  carried  on.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to 
the  great  task  remaining  before  us,  that  from  these  honored  dead  we 
take  increased  devotion  to  the  cause  for  which  they  here  gave  the  last 
full  measure  of  devotion,  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  the  dead  shall 
not  have  died  in  vain;  that  the  nation  shall,  under  God,  have  anew 
birth  of  freedom;  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and 
for  the  people  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

Before  the  first  sentence  was  completed,  a  thrill  of  feel 
ing,  like  an  electric  shock,  pervaded  the  crowd.  That  mys 
terious  influence  called  magnetism,  which  sometimes  so 
affects  a  popular  assembly,  spread  to  every  heart.  The 
vast  audience  was  instantly  hushed,  and  hung  upon  his 
every  word  and  syllable.  When  he  uttered  the  sentence: 
""  the  world  will  little  note  nor  long  remember  what  we  say 
here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here,"  every  one 
felt  that  it  was  not  the  "  honored  dead  "  only,  but  the  living 
actor  and  speaker,  that  the  world  for  all  time  to  come  would 
note  and  remember,  and  that  he,  the  speaker,  in  the  thrilling 
words  he  was  uttering,  was  linking  his  name  forever  with 
the  glory  of  the  dead.  He  seemed  so  absorbed  in  honoring 
the  "  heroic  sacrifices  "  of  the  soldiers,  as  utterly  to  forget 
himself,  but  all  his  hearers  realized  that  the  great  actor  in 
the  drama  stood  before  them,  and  that  the  words  he  was 
speaking  would  live  as  long  as  the  language;  that  they  were 
words  which  would  be  recalled  in  all  future  ages,  among  all 


330  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

peoples  ;  as  often  as  men  should  be  called  upon  to  die  for 
liberty  and  country. 

Thus  were  the  immortal  deeds  of  the  dead  commemor 
ated  in  immortal  words.  There  have  been  four  instances  in 
history  in  which  great  deeds  have  been  celebrated  in  words 
as  immortal  as  themselves  ;  the  well-known  epitaph  upon 
the  Spartans  who  perished  at  Thermopylae,  the  words  of 
Demosthenes  on  those  who  fell  at  Marathon,  the  speech  of 
Webster  in  memory  of  those  who  died  at  Bunker  Hill,  and 
these  words  of  Lincoln  in  honor  of  those  who  laid  down 
their  lives  on  the  field  of  Gettysburg. 

As  he  closed,  and  the  tears,  and  sobs,  and  cheers  which 
expressed  the  emotions  of  the  people  subsided,  he  turned 
to  Everett,  and  grasping  his  hand,  said  :  "  I  congratulate 
you  on  your  success."  The  orator  gracefully  replied  :  "  Ah, 
Mr.  President,  how  gladly  would  I  exchange  all  my  hundred 
pages  to  have  been  the  author  of  your  twenty  lines."  ' 

1.  The  author  is  indebted  to  Governor  Dennison,  the  Postmaster  General  and  aa 
eye-witness,  for  some  of  the  incidents  detailed  in  the  text. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

AFTER  GETTYSBURG. 

EFFECTS  OF  THE  BATTLE. —  LEE  CROSSES  THE  POTOMAC. —  CHICKA- 
MAUGA. —  LOOKOUT  MOUNTAIN  AND  MISSIONARY  RIDGE. —  THE 
DRAFT  RIOT  IN  NEW  YORK. —  MEETING  AT  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLI- 
NOIS. —  THE  PRESIDENT'S  LETTER  TO  HIS  OLD  FRIENDS. 

THE  battle  of  Gettysburg,  and  the  capture  of  Vicks- 
burg,  were  in  their  results  more  decisive  than  any  which 
had  preceded  them.  The  army  of  Lee,  naturally  elated  by 
their  brilliant  victory  at  Chancellorsville,  had  invaded  Mary 
land  and  Pennsylvania,  with  the  most  sanguine  hopes  of  suc 
cess,  and  with  the  determination  to  carry  the  war  into  the 
free  states.  They  boasted  that  they  would  water  their  horses 
in  the  Susquehanna  and  the  Delaware.  The  rich  grain 
fields,  the  stock  farms,  and  big  barns  of  Pennsylvania  and 
New  Jersey,  should  furnish  them  with  abundant  supplies. 
The  vast  stores  and  the  wealth  of  the  great  Northern  cities 
,were  passing  vividly  before  the  gloating  imaginations  of  these 
soldiers.  The  savage  threats  made  by  Jefferson  Davis,  on 
his  way  to  Montgomery  to  assume  the  presidency,  when  he 
said  :  "  We  will  carry  the  war  where  it  is  easy  to  advance  ; 
where  food  for  the  sword  and  the  torch  wait  our  army  in  the 
densely  populated  cities,"  1  were  now,  they  believed,  to  be 
realized.  But  this  arrogant  host,  proud  and  elated  with  their 
successes,  were  met  on  the  rocky  hills  of  Gettysburg,  and 
hurled  back,  never  again  in  force  to  cross  the  border. 

By  the  brilliant  capture  of  Vicksburg  the  rebel  territory 
was  severed,  and  the  "  great  Father  of  Waters,  wentunvexed 

1.  Greeley's  Conflict,  Vol.  1,  p.  415. 

331 


332  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

to  the  sea."  No  rebel  flag  was  again  to  float  over  the  majes 
tic  stream.  The  rebel  power  west  of  the  great  river  was 
broken,  never  to  be  re-established.  Before  the  end  of  1863, 
fully  one  hundred  thousand  negroes,  emancipated  slaves, 
were  in  the  military  service  of  the  United  States.  l 

Lincoln  entertained  sanguine  hopes  that  Lee's  army 
would  never  be  permitted  to  recross  the  Potomac,  and  its 
destruction,  he  believed,  would  bring  the  war  to  a  close.  It 
seems  to  have  been  quite  within  the  power  of  General 
Meade  to  annihilate  the  enemy  that  he  had  so  signally 
defeated  at  Gettysburg.  He  had  a  much  larger  force,  and 
abundant  supplies.  Lee's  three  days  fight  had  nearly  ex 
hausted  his  ammunition,  and  when  he  reached  the  Potomac  he 
had  the  swollen  waters  of  that  river  in  his  front,  with  no 
means  of  crossing  his  artillery,  and  another  defeat  must 
have  caused  the  surrender  of  his  whole  army.  But  Meade 
allowed  him  to  collect  lumber  from  canal  boats  and  ruined 
wooden  houses,  to  construct  a  bridge  and  cross  the  river. 
On  the  i4th  of  July,  Meade  telegraphed  to  Halleck  :  "The 
enemy  are  all  across  the  Potomac."  It  would  seem  as 
though  Meade  thought  his  duty  was  performed  when  he 
drove  the  enemy  back  to  Virginia,  forgetting  that  Virginia 
was  as  much  a  part  of  the  republic  as  Pennsylvania.  He 
displayed  so  little  enterprise  that  Lee  thought  it  safe  to  send 
Longstreet  to  Tennessee,  to  the  aid  of  Bragg  against  Rose- 
crans. 

On  September  igth  and  2oth,  was  fought  the  battle  of 
Chickamauga,  in  which  the  gallant  Thomas,  commanding 
the  center  of  Rosecrans's  army,  firmly  withstood  and  beat 
back  the  rebels  under  Bragg.  He  did  this  after  the  rebels 
had  turned  the  Union  right,  and  Rosecrans  had  been 
driven  from  the  field.  Thomas,  the  loyal  Virginian,  by  his 
heroism  and  good  conduct  on  this  occasion  saved  the  army, 
and  acquired  the  name  of  the  "  Rock  of  Chickamauga." 
Garfield,  chief  of  staff  of  Rosecrans,  especially  distinguished 
himself  in  this  battle. 

1.  President's  Message,  December  8th,  1863. 


AFTER  GETTYSBURG.  333 

On  the  1 9th  of  October,  General  Grant  arrived  at  Lou 
isville,  and  assumed  command  of  the  military  division  of  the 
Mississippi,  into  which  the  departments  of  the  Ohio  and  the 
Cumberland  were  now  merged.  This  brought  unity  of 
action  into  this  important  field.  Rosecrans  was  relieved, 
and  Thomas  became  commander  of  the  army  of  the  Cum 
berland. 

When  Thomas  retired  to  Chattanooga,  after  the  battle  of 
Chickamauga,  the  rebels  advanced  and  occupied  the  passes 
and  heights  of  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge, 
and  prepared  to  invest  Chattanooga.  Longstreet  had  been 
sent  to  drive  Burnside  out  of  East  Tennessee.  In  the  mean 
while,  Hooker  had  been  dispatched  from  the  East  to  the 
West  with  fifteen  thousand  men. 

Grant  reached  Thomas  on  the  226.  of  October,  and  the 
next  morning  made  a  reconnoissance  with  a  view  of  driving 
the  enemy  out  of  the  overlooking  mountains,  and  regaining 
the  use  of  the  Tennessee  River,  to  bring  to  his  army  much 
needed  supplies.  He  had  ordered  Sherman  and  his  corps 
to  join  him  at  Chattanooga.  Grant  never  had  better  lieu 
tenants  than  the  gallant  officers  who  now  surrounded  him. 
Sherman,  sagacious  and  rapid  ;  Thomas,  ever  reliable,  the 
hero  of  Chickamauga  ;  Sheridan,  the  impetuous  and  inde 
fatigable,  and  Hooker,  who,  while  not  equal  to  the  com 
mand  of  a  great  army,  was  well  able  to  lead  a  division  or 
army  corps  ;  and  now,  with  these  and  their  gallant  associates, 
and  an  army  hardy  and  well  disciplined,  Grant  determined 
to  storm  and  carry  the  heights  of  Lookout  Mountain  and 
Missionary  Ridge. 

It  was  a  bold  and  difficult  undertaking.  Sherman's 
forces  crossed  the  Tennessee,  and,  on  the  24th  of  Novem 
ber,  gained  possession  of  the  north  end  of  Missionary 
Ridge.  Thomas  attacked  in  the  center,  and  drove  the 
enemy  back  to  the  hills.  Hooker  pushed  round  Lookout 
Mountain,  and  drove  the  enemy  up  its  western  slope,  cap 
turing  their  rifle  pits,  and  following  them  with  impetuous 
ardor  through  the  forests  and  up  the  sides  of  the  mountain, 


334  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

until  he  reached  the  summit,  above  the  smoke  and  vapor  of 
the  hills,  and  then  the  spectators  from  the  valley  beheld 
the  dramatic  spectacle  of  Hooker's  battle-flags  waving 
in  triumph  from  the  top  of  the  mountain  and  above 
the  clouds.  The  next  day,  the  army  of  the  Cumberland 
assailed  the  field  works  at  the  foot  of  Missionary  Ridge, 
captured  them  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  and  then 
pressed  bravely  up  the  ridge  and  captured  the  summit  ; 
while  Sherman  and  Hooker  pressed  the  enemy  so  vig 
orously,  that  long  before  the  day  was  spent,  Lookout 
Mountain,  Chattanooga  Valley,  and  Missionary  Ridge 
were  in  possession  of  the  Union  troops,  and  Bragg  was  in 
rapid  retreat.  Many  prisoners  and  guns  were  captured. 
Thomas  pursued  Bragg,  fought  him  again  at  Ringgold,  and 
drove  him  to  Tunnel  Hill,  twenty  miles  from  Chatta 
nooga. 

Meanwhile,  Burnside  was  at  Knoxville,  confronted  by 
Longstreet,  and  Sherman  was  sent  by  forced  marches  to  his 
relief.  His  approach  sent  Longstreet  retreating  back  to 
Virginia,  and  thus  closed  in  triumph  the  campaign  in 
Tennessee.  The  relief  of  Western  Tennessee,  where, 
among  the  mountains,  attachment  to  the  Union  had  been 
general  and  strong,  and  where,  in  the  absence  of  national 
protection,  the  loyal  people  had  been  most  cruelly  perse 
cuted,  was  very  grateful  to  the  President.  He  issued  a 
proclamation  appointing  a  day  of  thanksgiving  and  grati 
tude  to  God  for  this  signal  triumph  of  the  national 
cause. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  on  the  3d  of  March,  1863, 
a  law  was  passed  for  the  enrollment  of  the  entire  military 
force  of  the  United  States.  The  enrollment  having  been 
completed,  in  June  a  draft  for  three  hundred  thousand  men 
was  ordered.  Time  was,  however,  given  to  each  state  to  fill 
up  its  quota,  and  thus  prevent  a  resort  to  drafting.  While 
there  was  in  the  loyal  states  a  considerable  party  opposed  to 
the  war,  and  many  who  openly  or  secretly  opposed  volun 
teering  to  fill  up  the  ranks  of  the  army,  the  great  majority 


AFTER  GETTYSBURG.  335 

were  loyal,  and  active  in  promoting  the  success  of  the 
national  cause.  There  had  been,  and  there  was  still,  great 
pride  and  emulation  in  the  towns,  cities,  and  states,  as  to 
which  should  fill  up  its  quota  of  troops  first,  and  there  was 
everywhere  manifested  a  desire  that  each  locality  should 
fill  its  quota  without  the  draft.  Large  local  bounties  were 
offered,  and  much  the  larger  proportion  of  the  men  called 
for  were  obtained  without  drafting.  All  who  were  opposed 
to  the  war,  and  all  who  sympathized  with  the  rebels,  availed 
themselves  of  the  draft  to  excite  prejudice  against  and  oppo 
sition  to  the  administration.  Every  means  was  resorted  to 
to  oppose  enlistments  and  to  stir  up,  if  possible,  resistance 
to  the  draft. 

But  the  loyalty  and  patriotism  of  the  people  were  too 
strong  to  be  subdued,  and  no  formidable  opposition  to  the 
law  was  manifested,  except  in  the  city  of  New  York.  Here 
were  a  large  number  of  Southern  immigrants  and  Southern 
sympathizers,  and  a  large  population  foreign  by  birth,  whose 
attachment  to  the  republic  was  so  slight  that  the  emissaries 
of  the  rebellion  succeeded  in  creating  a  formidable  opposi 
tion  to  the  law.  When  orders  were  issued  to  proceed  with 
the  draft,  on  the  nth  of  July,  threats  of  opposition  were 
made,  and,  on  the  i3th,  the  proceedings  were  arrested  by  a 
furious  mob,  which  broke  into  and  set  fire  to  the  building 
in  which  the  marshal's  office  was  situated.  The  mob  pre 
vented  the  firemen  from  extinguishing  the  flames,  and  a 
whole  block  was  burned.  The  police  were  attacked  and 
overpowered.  There  was  no  considerable  force  of  regular 
troops  on  hand,  and  many  of  the  state  militia  were  absent  in 
Pennsylvania,  to  aid  in  resisting  the  invasion  of  Lee,  so  that 
it  was  found  difficult  immediately  to  raise  a  force  adequate 
to  suppress  the  riot.  It  was  joined  by  the  criminal  classes, 
and  the  worst  elements  of  a  great  city,  and  for  a  time  it  went 
from  street  to  street,  murdering,  pillaging,  and  burning. 
Hatred  of  the  negro  was  the  animus  of  the  infuriated  mob. 
They  set  fire  to  the  half-orphan  asylum  for  colored  children, 
and,  with  the  spirit  of  devils,  abused  and  scattered  the 


336  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

orphans,  burned  the  building,  and  caught  and  hung  every 
negro  they  could  find.  The  police  did  their  duty  manfully, 
but  were  overpowered.  Governor  Seymour,  of  New  York, 
was  in  the  city,  and  addressed  the  rioters  in  the  park,  elo 
quently  urging  forbearance.  But  musket  balls,  grape  shot, 
and  cold  steel,  rather  than  civil  words,  were  needed. 
Troops  were  recalled  from  Pennsylvania  and  elsewhere 
and  the  riot  suppressed,  but  not  until  the  most  cruel  out 
rages  had  been  perpetrated. 

When  the  President  first  heard  of  the  disturbance,  and 
before  it  had  assumed  formidable  proportions,  he  was  told 
that  there  was  danger  of  an  Irish  riot  in  New  York,  in  oppo 
sition  to  the  draft,  and  it  was  suggested  that  he  should  send 
an  efficient  officer  there  to  preserve  order.  He  said:  "  I 
think  I  will  send  General  Kilpatrick,"  a  dashing  cavalry 
officer.  "His  very  name  maybe  sufficient."  But  he  soon 
learned  that  something  more  stern  than  words  or  names  was 
needed  to  put  down  the  frenzied  mob. 

On  the  3d  of  September,  1863,  a  great  meeting  of  the 
Union  men  of  all  parties  was  called  to  meet  at  the  Capitol  of 
Illinois.  The  President  was  most  earnestly  and  affection 
ately  invited  to  attend,  "  to  meet  his  old  friends  at  his  old 
home."  He  had  left  that  old  home  in  February,  1861,  con 
scious  that  he  had  a  task  before  him  far  more  difficult  than 
that  which  had  devolved  upon  "  any  other  man  since  the 
days  of  Washington,"  and,  in  parting  from  his  neighbors,  he 
had  humbly,  sincerely,  and  hopefully  asked  his  old  friends 
to  pray  that  he  might  receive  the  "  divine  assistance  of  that 
Almighty  Being,"  in  whom  he  placed  his  reliance.  Two 
and  a  half  years  had  passed  in  the  midst  of  the  convulsions 
of  this  tremendous  civil  war.  The  young  men  of  Illinois 
and  the  Northwest,  the  sons  of  his  old  friends,  were  in  the 
Union  armies  ;  some  of  them  in  soldiers'  graves.  It  had 
become  very  obvious  that  his  task  was  far  more  difficult  than 
that  which  had  devolved  upon  Washington.  His  comrades, 
the  pioneers  of  Illinois,  had  watched  his  career  with  deep  solic 
itude  and  anxiety.  Could  he  succeed  in  saving  his  country,. 


AFTER  GETTYSBURG.  337 

and  redeeming  it  from  the  curse  of  slavery  ?  They  had 
talked  of  him  around  their  firesides.  In  their  log  cabins 
and  humble  chapels  they  had  prayed  for  his  success  ;  they 
had  freely  sent  their  sons  to  the  field  to  fight,  and  now  they 
yearned  to  see  him  again  face  to  face,  to  see  how  he  bore 
himself,  and  to  hear  his  familiar  voice. 

To  this  meeting  Lincoln  wished  very  much  to  go,  but 
he  could  not  leave  the  helm,  and  so  he  sent  them  a  kind  let 
ter.  This  letter  to  his  neighbors  contains  such  a  simple, 
clear,  and  frank  exposition  of  his  policy,  and  is  so  character 
istic,  that  it  is  inserted  here  in  full.  He  says : 

EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
WASHINGTON,  August  26,  1863. 

HON.  JAMES  C.  CONKLING. —  My  Dear  Sir  :  Your  letter  inviting- 
me  to  attend  a  mass  meeting  of  unconditional  Union  men,  to  be  held  at 
the  capital  of  Illinois,  on  the  3d  day  of  September,  has  been  received. 
It  would  be  very  agreeable  for  me  thus  to  meet  my  old  friends  at  my 
own  home  ;  but  I  cannot  just  now  be  absent  from  here  so  long  as  a  visit 
there  would  require. 

The  meeting  is  to  be  of  all  those  who  maintain  unconditional  devo 
tion  to  the  Union  ;  and  I  am  sure  that  my  old  political  friends  will  thank 
me  for  tendering,  as  I  do,  the  nation's  gratitude  to  those  other  noble 
men  whom  no  partisan  malice  or  partisan  hope  can  make  false  to  the 
nation's  life. 

There  are  those  who  are  dissatisfied  with  me.  To  such  I  would 
say  :  You  desire  peace,  and  you  blame  me  that  we  do  not  have  it.  But 
how  can  we  attain  it  ?  There  are  but  three  conceivable  ways  :  First — 
to  suppress  the  rebellion  by  force  of  arms.  This  I  am  trying  to  do. 
Are  you  for  it  ?  If  you  are,  so  far  we  are  agreed.  If  you  are  not  for 
it,  a  second  way  is  to  give  up  the  Union.  I  am  against  this.  Are  you 
for  it  ?  If  you  are,  you  should  say  so  plainly.  If  you  are  not  for  force, 
nor  yet  for  dissolution,  there  only  remains  some  imaginable  compromise. 

I  do  not  believe  that  any  compromise  embracing  the  maintenance  of 
the  Union  is  now  possible.  All  that  I  learn  leads  to  a  directly  opposite 
belief.  The  strength  of  the  rebellion  is  its  military,  its  army.  That 
army  dominates  all  the  country,  and  all  the  people  within  its  range.  Any 
offer  of  terms  made  by  any  man  or  men  within  that  range,  in  opposition 
to  that  army,  is  simply  nothing  for  the  present ;  because  such  man  or 
men  have  no  power  whatever  to  enforce  their  side  of  a  compromise,  if 
one  were  made  with  them. 

To  illustrate  :     Suppose  refugees  from  the  South  and  peace  men  of 
22 


338  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  North  get  together  in  convention,  and  frame  and  proclaim  a  com 
promise  embracing  a  restoration  of  the  Union.  In  what  way  can  that 
compromise  be  used  to  keep  Lee's  army  out  of  Pennsylvania  ?  Meade's 
army  can  keep  Lee's  army  out  of  Pennsylvania,  and,  I  think,  can  ulti 
mately  drive  it  out  of  existence.  But  no  paper  compromise  to  which  the 
controllers  of  Lee's  army  are  not  agreed,  can  at  all  affect  that  army.  In 
an  effort  at  such  compromise  we  would  waste  time,  which  the  enemy 
would  improve  to  our  disadvantage  ;  and  that  would  be  all. 

A  compromise,  to  be  effective,  must  be  made  either  with  those  who 
•control  the  rebel  army,  or  with  the  people,  first  liberated  from  the  domi 
nation  of  that  army  by  the  success  of  our  own  army.  Now,  allow  me 
to  assure  you  that  no  word  or  intimation  from  that  rebel  army,  or  from 
any  of  the  men  controlling  it,  in  relation  to  any  peace  compromise,  has 
ever  come  to  my  knowledge  or  belief.  All  charges  and  insinuations  to 
the  contrary  are  deceptive  and  groundless.  And  I  promise  you  that  if 
any  such  proposition  shall  hereafter  come,  it  shall  not  be  rejected  and 
kept  a  secret  from  you.  I  freely  acknowledge  myself  to  be  the  servant 
•of  the  people,  according  to  the  bond  of  service,  the  United  States  Con 
stitution  ;  and  that,  as  such,  I  am  responsible  to  them. 

But,  to  be  plain.  You  are  dissatisfied  with  me  about  the  negro. 
Quite  likely  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  between  you  and  myself  upon 
that  subject.  I  certainly  wish  that  all  men  could  be  free,  while  you,  I 
suppose,  do  not.  Yet,  I  have  neither  adopted  nor  proposed  any  meas 
ure  which  is  not  consistent  with  even  your  view,  provided  that  you  are 
for  the  Union.  I  suggested  compensated  emancipation  ;  to  which  you 
replied  you  wished  not  to  be  taxed  to  buy  negroes.  But  I  had  not  asked 
you  to  be  taxed  to  buy  negroes,  except  in  such  a  way  as  to  save  you  from 
greater  taxation  to  save  the  Union  exclusively  by  other  means. 

You  dislike  the  emancipation  proclamation,  and  perhaps  would 
have  it  retracted.  You  say  it  is  unconstitutional.  I  think  differently. 
I  think  the  Constitution  invests  its  Commander  in  Chief  with  the  law  of 
war  in  time  of  war.  The  most  that  can  be  said,  if  so  much,  is,  that 
slaves  are  property.  Is  there,  has  there  ever  been,  any  question  that  by 
the  law  of  war,  property,  both  of  enemies  and  friends,  may  be  taken 
when  needed  ?  And  is  it  not  needed  whenever  it  helps  us  and  hurts  the 
enemy  ?  Armies,  the  world  over,  destroy  enemies'  property  when  they 
cannot  use  it  ;  and  even  destroy  their  own  to  keep  it  from  the  enemy. 
Civilized  belligerents  do  all  in  their  power  to  help  themselves  or  hurt  the 
enemy,  except  a  few  things  regarded  as  barbarous  or  cruel.  Among 
the  exceptions  are  the  massacre  of  vanquished  foes  and  non-combatants, 
male  and  female. 

But  the  proclamation,  as  law,  either  is  valid  or  is  not  valid.  If  it  is 
not  valid,  it  needs  no  retraction.  If  it  is  valid,  it  cannot  be  retracted, 


AFTER  GETTYSBURG.  339 

any  more  than  the  dead  can  be  brought  to  life.  Some  of  you  profess  to 
think  its  retraction  would  operate  favorably  for  the  Union.  Why  better 
after  the  retraction  than  before  the  issue  ?  There  was  more  than  a  year 
and  a  half  of  trial  to  suppress  the  rebellion  before  the  proclamation  was 
issued,  the  last  one  hundred  days  of  which  passed  under  an  explicit 
notice  that  it  was  coming,  unless  averted  by  those  in  revolt  returning  to 
their  allegiance.  The  war  has  certainly  progressed  as  favorably  for  us 
since  the  issue  of  the  proclamation  as  before. 

I  know  as  fully  as  one  can  know  the  opinion  of  others,  that 
some  of  the  commanders  of  our  armies  in  the  field,  who  have  given  us 
our  most  important  victories,  believe  the  emancipation  policy  and  the 
use  of  colored  troops  constitute  the  heaviest  blows  yet  dealt  to  the 
rebellion,  and  that  at  least  one  of  those  important  successes  could 
not  have  been  achieved  when  it  was,  but  for  the  aid  of  the  black 
soldiers. 

Among  the  commanders  who  hold  these  views  are  some  who  have 
never  had  an  affinity  with  what  is  called  "  abolitionism,  "or  with  "repub 
lican  party  politics,"  but  who  hold  them  purely  as  military  opinions.  I 
submit  their  opinions  as  entitled  to  some  weight  against  the  objections 
often  urged  that  emancipation  and  arming  the  blacks  are  unwise  as 
military  measures,  and  were  not  adopted  as  such  in  good  faith. 

You  say  that  you  will  not  fight  to  free  negroes.  Some  of  them 
seem  willing  to  fight  for  you  ;  but  no  matter.  Fight  you,  then,  exclu 
sively,  to  save  the  Union.  I  issued  the  proclamation  on  purpose  to  aid 
you  in  saving  the  Union.  Whenever  you  shall  have  conquered  all 
resistance  to  the  Union,  if  1  shall  urge  you  to  continue  fighting,  it  will 
.be  an  apt  time  then  for  you  to  declare  you  will  not  fight  to  free  negroes. 
I  thought  that  in  your  struggle  for  the  Union,  to  whatever  extent  the 
negroes  shall  cease  helping  the  enemy,  to  that  extent  it  weakened  the 
enemy  in  his  resistance  to  you.  Do  you  think  differently?  I  thought 
whatever  negroes  can  be  got  to  do  as  soldiers,  leaves  just  so  much  less 
for  white  soldiers  to  do  in  saving  the  Union.  Does  it  appear  otherwise 
to  you  ?  But  negroes,  like  other  people,  act  upon  motives.  Why  should 
they  do  anything  for  us  if  we  will  do  nothing  for  them  ?  If  they  stake 
their  lives  for  us,  they  must  be  prompted  by  the  strongest  motives, 
even  the  promise  of  freedom.  And  the  promise,  being  made,  must 
be  kept. 

The  signs  look  better.  The  Father  of  Waters  again  goes  unvexed 
to  the  sea.  Thanks  to  the  great  Northwest  for  it ;  nor  yet  wholly  to 
them.  Three  hundred  miles  up  they  met  New  England,  Empire,  Key 
stone,  and  Jersey,  hewing  their  way  right  and  left.  The  sunny  South, 
too,  in  more  colors  than  one,  also  lent  a  helping  hand.  On  the  spot, 
their  part  of  the  history  was  jotted  down  in  black  and  white.  The  job 


34O  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

was  a  great  national  one,  and  let  none  be  slighted  who  bore  an  honorable 
part  in  it.  And  while  those  who  have  cleared  the  great  river  may  well 
be  proud,  even  that  is  not  all.  It  is  hard  to  say  that  anything  has  been 
more  bravely  and  well  done  than  at  Antietam,  Murfreesboro,  Gettys 
burg,  and  on  many  fields  of  less  note.  Nor  must  Uncle  Sam's  web  feet 
be  forgotten.  At  all  the  watery  margins  they  have  been  present,  not 
only  on  the  deep  sea,  the  broad  bay,  and  the  rapid  river,  but  also  up 
the  narrow,  muddy  bayou,  and  wherever  the  ground  was  a  little  damp, 
they  have  been  and  made  their  tracks.  Thanks  to  all.  For  the  great 
Republic — for  the  principle  it  lives  by  and  keeps  alive — for  man's  vast 
future — thanks  to  all. 

Peace  does  not  appear  so  distant  as  it  did.  I  hope  it  will  come  soon 
and  come  to  stay ;  and  so  come  as  to  be  worth  the  keeping  in  all  future 
time.  It  will  then  have  been  proved  that  among  freemen  there  can  be 
no  successful  appeal  from  the  ballot  to  the  bullet,  and  that  they  who 
take  such  appeal  are  sure  to  lose  their  case  and  pay  the  cost.  And  there 
will  be  some  black  men  who  can  remember  that  with  silent  tongue,  and 
clenched  teeth,  and  steady  eye,  and  well-poised  bayonet,  they  have  helped 
mankind  on  to  this  great  consummation,  while  I  fear  there  will  be  some 
white  ones  unable  to  forget  that  with  malignant  heart  and  deceitful 
speech  they  have  striven  to  hinder  it. 

Still,  let  us  not  be  over-sanguine  of  a  speedy,  final  triumph.     Let 
us  be  quite  sober.     Let  us  diligently  apply  the  means,  never  doubting 
that  a  just  God,  in  his  own  good  time,  will  give  us  the  rightful  result. 
Yours,  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

This  honest  and  manly  explanation  of  his  policy  was 
received  with  the  most  enthusiastic  satisfaction  and  applause. 
His  reasons  for  the  emancipation  proclamation,  and  all 
other  acts  for  which  he  had  been  criticised,  were  approved, 
and  when  his  words  of  hope  and  faith  in  final  success  were 
read,  beginning:  "The  signs  look  better.  The  Father  of 
Waters  goes  unvexed  to  the  sea,  thanks  to  the  great  North 
west,  nor  yet  not  wholly  to  them,"  etc.,  the  people  felt  that 
nature  itself,  the  great  rivers  and  prairies  of  the  West,  were 
rejoicing  in  the  triumphs  of  the  Union  cause.  The  people 
had  such  faith  in  his  sagacity  and  honesty  that  they  felt 
assured  of  final  victory,  and  were  ready  to  make  any  sacri 
fice  which  he  should  ask  to  secure  it.  And  so  Illinois  sent 
back  her  greetings  and  congratulations  to  the  White  House. 
The  people  joined  with  the  President  in  thanks  to  God  that 


AFTER  GETTYSBURG.  34! 

no  longer  did  any  rebel  flag  float  over  any  part  of  the  Mis 
sissippi;  that  the  national  capital  and  all  national  territories 
were  now  free;  that  the  border  states  were  all  becoming  free 
states,  and  that  the  triumph  of  the  national  arms  would, 
under  the  influence  of  the  proclamation  of  emancipation, 
abolish  slavery  everywhere  throughout  the  republic.  The 
people  rejoiced  that  as  slavery  had  drawn  the  sword,  it  was 
doomed  to  die  by  the  sword;  that  having  plunged  the  nation 
into  war,  slavery  was  to  perish  by  the  laws  of  war. 

The  elections  in  the  autumn  of  1863  indicated  the  confi 
dence  of  the  people  in  the  President,  and  their  unanimity  in 
support  of  his  administration.  Every  state  in  which  elec 
tions  were  held,  except  New  Jersey,  gave  great  majorities 
for  the  administration;  and  in  Ohio,  where  the  democrats 
had  nominated  Vallandigham  for  governor,  he  was  in  a 
minority  of  nearly  one  hundred  thousand  votes. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE  AMENDMENT  PROPOSED. 

DEBATE  IN  THE  SENATE. — SPEECHES  OF  TRUMBULL,  WILSON,  JOHN 
SON,  HOWARD,  AND  OTHERS. — A  NEW  YEAR'S  CALL  ON  THE 
PRESIDENT. — DEBATE  IN  THE  HOUSE. — TEST  VOTE. — SPEECHES  OF 
WILSON,  ARNOLD,  RANDALL,  PENDLETON,  AND  OTHERS. — THE 
AMENDMENT  FAILS. 

IN  the  early  part  of  this  book  we  have  seen  that  Lincoln 
in  his  younger  days  dreamed  of  being  an  emancipator.  In 
what  way  this  day  dream  or  presentiment  -entered  his  mind, 
whether  it  was  due  to  the  prophecy  of  the  Voudou  on  his 
visit  to  New  Orleans,  or  whether  it  was  one  of  those 
mysterious  impressions  which  come  from  no  one  knows 
where,  it  is  impossible  to  tell.  A  careful  reading  of  his 
speeches  and  writings  will  indicate  that  in  some  way  there 
had  been  impressed  upon  his  mind  a  premonition  that  he 
was  to  be  an  agent  in  freeing  the  slaves. 

So  early  as  January,  1837,  when  he  was  a  very  obscure 
man,  in  his  lecture  to  the  young  men's  association  at  Spring 
field,  on  "  The  Perpetuation  of  Our  Political  Institutions," 
he  spoke  of  the  glory  and  distinction  to  be  gained  by  the 
"emancipation  of  slaves."  "Many  great  and  good  men 
may  be  found,"  he  said,  "  whose  ambition  would  aspire  to 
nothing  beyond  a  seat  in  Congress,  a  gubernatorial  or  presi 
dential  chair,  but  such  belong  not  to  the  family  of  the  lion 
or  the  tribe  of  the  eagle."  In  the  same  year,  as  a  member 
of  the  Illinois  Legislature,  he  joined  one  other  member  (they 
being  the  only  members  who  would  sign  it)  in  a  protest 
against  pro-slavery  resolutions.  A  Kentuckian  by  birth,  and 

342 


THE  AMENDMENT  PROPOSED. 


343 


representing  a  district  very  hostile  to  abolition,  he  intro 
duced  into  Congress,  in  1849,  a  bill  to  abolish  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia.  In  June,  1858,  he  made  the  speech 
in  which  he  said:  "A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand."  In  that  most  thoughtful,  sagacious,  and  philosophic 
address  he  anticipated  Governor  Seward's  "  irrepressible 
conflict "  speech,  which  was  delivered  at  Rochester,  in  New 
York,  October  25th,  1858.  In  this  June  speech  of  the  then 
little  known  philosophic  statesman,  he  said:  "Either  the 
opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and 
place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it 
is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will 
push  it  forward,  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the 
states,  old  as  well  as  new — North  as  well  as  South."  *  * 
"  To  meet  and  overcome  the  power  of  the  dynasty  (slavery) 
*  *  *  is  what  we  have  to  do,"  and  he  concludes  with 
these  solemn  words:  "  The  result  is  not  doubtful.  Wise 
counsels  may  accelerate  or  mistakes  delay,  but  sooner  or 
later  the  victory  is  sure  to  come."  There  are  few  if  any 
words  more  expressive  of  the  character  of  Lincoln  than 
those  with  which  he  concluded  his  great  speech  at  Cooper 
Institute:  "Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might,  and 
in  that  faith  let  us  to  the  end  do  our  duty,  as  we  understand 
it."  1 

It  was  this  faith,  and  the  courage  to  do  his  duty  as  he 
^understood  it,  that  sustained  and  carried  him  through  the 
darkest  days  of  his  administration.  As  to  slavery,  and  his 
action  in  relation  to  it,  he  said  in  his  letter  to  Hodges,  of 
Kentucky,  April  4,  1864: 

"  I  am  naturally  anti-slavery.  If  slavery  is  not  wrong,  nothing  is 
wrong.  I  cannot  remember  when  I  did  not  so  think  and  feel,  and  yet  I 
have  never  understood  that  the  Presidency  conferred  upon  me  an  unre 
stricted  right  to  act  officially  upon  this  judgment  and  feeling.  *  *  * 
When,  early  in  the  war,  General  Fremont  attempted  military  emancipa 
tion,  I  forbade  it,  because  I  did  not  then  think  it  an  indispensable  ne 
cessity.  When  still  later,  General  Cameron,  then  Secretary  of  War,  sug- 

1.    Observe  the  number  of  words  of  oiie  syllable  in  this  and  all  his  writings  and 
speeches. 


344  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

gested  the  arming  of  the  blacks,  I  objected,  because  I  did  not  yet  think  it 
an  indispensable  necessity.  When,  still  later,  General  Hunter  attempted 
military  emancipation,  I  again  forbade  it,  because  I  did  not  yet  think  the 
indispensable  necessity  had  come.  When  in  March,  and  May,  and  July, 
1862,  I  made  earnest  and  successive  appeals  to  the  border  states  to  favor 
compensated  emancipation,  I  believed  the  indispensable  necessity  for 
military  emancipation  and  arming  the  blacks  would  come,  unless  averted 
by  that  measure.  They  declined  the  proposition,  and  I  was,  in  my 
best  judgment,  driven  to  the  alternative  of  either  surrendering  the  Union, 
and  with  it,  the  Constitution,  or  of  laying  strong  hands  upon  the  colored 
element.  I  chose  the  latter.  In  choosing  it,  I  hoped  for  greater  gain 
than  loss,  but  of  this  I  was  not  entirely  confident.  More  than  a  year  of 
trial  now  shows  no  loss  by  it  in  our  foreign  relations,  none  in  our  home 
popular  sentiment,  none  in  our  white  military  force,  no  loss  by  it  anyhow 
or  anywhere.  On  the  contrary,  it  shows  a  gain  of  quite  a  hundred  and 
thirty  thousand  soldiers,  seamen,  and  laborers.  These  are  palpable 
facts,  about  which,  as  facts,  there  can  be  no  cavilling.  We  have  the 
men;  and  we  could  not  have  had  them  without  the  measure.  *  * 

"  I  add  a  word  which  was  not  in  the  verbal  conversation.  In  tell 
ing  this  tale,  I  attempt  no  compliment  to  my  own  sagacity.  I  claim 
not  to  have  controlled  events,  but  confess  plainly  that  events  have  con 
trolled  me.  Now,  at  the  end  of  three  years'  struggle,  the  nation's  condi 
tion  is  not  what  either  party  or  any  man  devised  or  expected.  God  alone 
can  claim  it.  Whither  it  is  tending  seems  plain.  If  God  now  wills  the 
removal  of  a  great  wrong,  and  wills  also  that  we  of  the  North,  as  well 
as  you  of  the  South,  shall  pay  fairly  for  our  complicity  in  that  wrong, 
impartial  history  will  find  therein  new  causes  to  attest  and  revere  the 
justice  and  goodness  of  God."1 

The  history  of  the  emancipation  proclamation  has  already 
been  told.  It  had  been  issued  by  him  with  the  sincere  belief 
that  it  was  "  an  act  of  justice  warranted  by  the  Constitution, 
and  upon  military  necessity,"  and  upon  it  he  had  invoked 
"the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind,  and  the  gracious 
favor  of  Almighty  God."  Congress  had  abolished  slavery 
at  the  capital,  prohibited  it  in  the  territories,  and  had  de 
clared  all  negro  soldiers  in  the  Union  army,  and  their 
families,  free  ;  repealed  the  fugitive  slave  laws,  and  indeed 
all  laws  which  recognized  or  sanctioned  slavery,  and  it  had 
approved  the  proclamation.  The  states  not  embraced  in  this 
proclamation  had  emancipated  their  slaves,  so  that  slavery 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  336. 


THE  AMENDMENT  PROPOSED.  345 

existed  only  within  the  rebel  lines,  and  only  on  territory 
over  which  the  rebels  had  military  control.  The  abolition 
of  slavery  in  the  republic  so  far  as  it  could  be  done  by 
Congress  and  the  Commander  in  Chief  was  an  accomplished 
fact.  It  existed  within  the  rebel  lines  alone,  and  there  the 
slaves  were  held  by  force.  Lincoln  was  by  nature  a  con 
servative,  and  he  had  always  wished  to  emancipate  the 
negroes,  but  he  desired  to  accomplish  it  by  gradual  and 
compensated  emancipation.  He  wished  the  change  to 
"  come  gently  as  the  dews  of  heaven,  not  rending  or  wreck 
ing  anything."  * 

These  efforts  failed,  and  he  was  compelled  to  resort  to  the 
proclamation,  under  the  laws  of  war.  From  the  day  of  its  issue, 
he  labored  by  pen  and  voice,  and  personal  and  official  influ 
ence,  to  make  that  proclamation  effective.  After  all  that 
had  been  done  by  Congress,  by  war,  and  by  the  Executive, 
one  thing  alone  remained,  to  complete  and  make  perma 
nently  effective  these  great  anti-slavery  measures.  This  was 
to  introduce  into  the  Constitution  itself  a  provision  to  abol 
ish  slavery  in  the  United  States,  and  prohibit  its  existence  in 
every  part  thereof  forever.  To  accomplish  this  required  the 
adoption,  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  each  House  of  Congress, 
of  a  joint  resolution  to  be  submitted  to,  and  ratified  by 
three-fourths  of  the  states.  To  use  the  homely  but  expres 
sive  phrase  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  this  would  finish  the  job,"  and 
to  this  he  now  devoted  his  constant  efforts.  "  We  cannot," 
says  he,  "  escape  history.  We  will  be  remembered  in  spite 
of  ourselves.  *  *  *  The  fiery  trial  through 

which  we  pass  will  light  us  down  in  honor  or  dishonor  to  the 
latest  generation."  2 

In  the  midst  of  the  war,  we  pause  to  give  a  history  of 
this  thirteenth,  and  far  most  important  of  all  amendments  to 
the  Constitution.  The  debates  thereon,  in  both  branches  of 
Congress,  were  the  most  important  in  American  history. 
Indeed  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  any  others  so  important 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  256. 

2.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  224. 


346  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

in  the  history  of  the  world.  They  ran  through  two  sessions 
of  Congress,  and  in  eloquence  and  ability  equal  the  discus 
sions  of  any  deliberative  assembly  ever  held.  The  speeches 
were  fully  reported,  which  was  not  the  case  in  other  great 
debates  of  earlier  date.  We  are  indebted  to  the  imagina 
tion  of  Webster  for  the  speeches  in  the  Continental  Con 
gress  on  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  The  greatest 
debate  in  the  Senate,  prior  to  this,  was  the  memorable  one 
between  Webster  and  Hayne,  and  their  associates,  on  nulli 
fication. 

On  the  i4th  of  December,  1863,  as  soon  as  the  Speaker 
had  announced  the  standing  committees  of  the  House,  he 
proceeded  in  regular  order  of  business  to  call  the  states  for 
resolutions.  As  Ohio,  the  first  state  organized  under  the 
great  Ordinance  of  1787,  was  called,  one  of  her  representa 
tives,  James  M.  Ashley,  introduced  a  joint  resolution,  sub 
mitting  to  the  states  a  proposition  to  amend  the  Constitu 
tion,  by  abolishing  and  prohibiting  slavery.  When  Iowa  was 
called,  James  F.  Wilson,  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  the 
Judiciary,  introduced  a  joint  resolution  providing  for  the 
submission  to  the  states  of  an  amendment  to  the  Constitu 
tion  for  the  same  purpose.  On  the  nth  of  January,  1864, 
Senators  Henderson,  of  Missouri,  and  Sumner,  of  Massa 
chusetts,  presented  joint  resolutions  with  the  same  object, 
and  they  were  referred  to  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary,  of 
which  Lyman  Trumbull,  of  Illinois,  was  chairman.  Trum- 
bull  had  been  elected  to  the  Senate  in  1856,  by  the  personal 
influence  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  was  a  ready  speaker,  an  able 
debater,  and  in  the  discussions  in  the  Senate  had  been  a 
worthy  rival  of  his  great  associate,  Douglas.  He  was  prob 
ably,  without  exception,  the  best  practical  legislator  in  the 
Senate,  and,  as  Chairman  of  the  Judiciary  Committee,  did 
more  than  any  one  else  to  frame  the  various  acts  of  Con 
gress  which  became  laws  during  the  war. 

On  the  loth  of  February, .  1864,  he  reported  from  the 
Judiciary  Committee  a  substitute  for  the  resolutions  which 
had  been  offered  by  Henderson  and  Sumner.  Adopting; 


THE  AMENDMENT  PROPOSED.  347 

the  language   of  the   celebrated     Ordinance   of   1787,    he 
reported  the  proposed  amendment  in  these  words  : 

"Art.  XIII,  Sec.  i.  Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude, 
except  as  a  punishment  for  crime,  whereof  the  party  shall  have  been  duly 
convicted,  shall  exist  within  the  United  States,  or  any  place  subject 
to  their  jurisdiction. 

' '  Sec.  2.  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce  this  article  by  appro 
priate  legislation." 

On  the  28th  of  March  the  Senate  proceeded  to  consider 
the  question,  and  the  debate  was  opened  by  Senator  Trum- 
bull.  He  sketched  with  great  clearness  and  force  the 
struggle  between  freedom  and  slavery  during  the  last  sev 
enty  years,  and  showed  how  slavery  was  at  the  bottom  of 
all  our  difficulties.  He  said  :  * 

"  If  these  halls  have  resounded  from  our  earliest  recollections  with 
the  strifes  and  contests  of  sections,  ending  sometimes  in  blood,  it  was 
slavery  which  almost  always  occasioned  them.  No  superficial  observer 
even  of  our  history,  North  or  South,  or  of  any  party,  can  doubt  that 
slavery  lies  at  the  bottom  of  our  present  troubles.  Our  fathers  who 
made  the  Constitution  regarded  it  as  an  evil,  and  looked  forward  to  its 
early  extinction.  They  felt  the  inconsistency  of  their  position,  while 
proclaiming  the  equal  rights  of  all  to  life,  liberty,  and  happiness,  they 
denied  liberty,  happiness,  and  life  itself  to  a  whole  race,  except  in  subor 
dination  to  them.  It  was  impossible  in  the  nature  of  things,  that  a 
government  based  on  such  antagonistic  principles  could  permanently  and 
peacefully  endure,  nor  did  its  founders  expect  it  would.  They  looked 
forward  to  the  not  distant  nor,  as  they  supposed,  uncertain  period,  when 
slavery  should  be  abolished,  and  the  government  become  in  fact  what 
they  made  it  in  name,  one  securing  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  all.  The 
history  of  the  last  seventy  years  has  proved  that  the  founders  of  the 
republic  were  mistaken  in  their  expectations  ;  and  slavery,  so  far  from 
gradually  disappearing  as  they  had  anticipated,  had  so  strengthened 
itself,  that  in  1860,  its  advocates  demanded  the  control  of  the  nation 
in  its  interests,  failing  in  which,  they  attempted  its  overthrow.  This 
attempt  brought  into  hostile  collision  the  slaveholding  aristocracy,  who 
made  the  right  to  live  by  the  toil  of  others  the  chief  article  of  their  faith, 
and  the  free  laboring  masses  of  the  North,  who  believed  in  the  right  of 
every  man  to  eat  the  bread  his  own  hands  had  earned." 

He  then  reviewed  the  action  of   Congress  and  of  the 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  vol.  51,  p.  1313. 


348  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Executive  on  the  subject  of  slavery  during  the  war,  and 
•closed  the  review  by  showing  that  the  only  way  of  ridding 
the  country  forever  of  slavery  so  that  it  could  never  be 
resuscitated,  either  by  state  or  congressional  action,  was  by 
a  Constitutional  amendment,  prohibiting  it  forever  every 
where  within  the  United  States.  His  practical  mind  then 
discussed  the  probability  of  the  adoption  of  the  amendment, 
and  on  that  point  came  to  this  conclusion  : 

"I  think,  then,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose,  that  if  this  proposed 
amendment  passes  Congress,  it  will  within  a  year  receive  the  ratification 
of  the  requisite  number  of  states  to  make  it  a  part  of  the  Constitution. 
That  accomplished,  and  we  are  forever  freed  of  this  troublesome  ques 
tion.  We  accomplish  then  what  the  statesmen  of  this  country  have  been 
struggling  to  accomplish  for  years.  We  take  this  question  entirely  away 
from  the  politics  of  the  country.  We  relieve  Congress  of  sectional  strife, 
and  what  is  better  than  all,  we  restore  to  a  whole  race  that  freedom 
which  is  theirs  by  the  gift  of  God,  but  which  we  for  generations  have 
wickedly  denied  them."  l 

Trumbull  was  followed  by  Senator  Wilson,  of  Massa 
chusetts,  who  said : 2 

"  Why  is  it,  Mr.  President,  that  this  magnificent  continental  repub 
lic  is  now  rent,  torn,  dissevered  by  civil  war  ?  Why  is  it  that  the  land 
resounds  with  the  measured  tread  of  a  million  of  armed  men?  Why  is 
it  that  our  bright  waters  are  stained,  and  our  green  fields  reddened  with 
fraternal  blood  ?  Why  is  it  that  the  young  men  of  America,  in  the  pride 
and  bloom  of  early  manhood,  are  summoned  from  homes,  from  the 
mothers  who  bore  them,  from  the  wives  and  sisters  who  love  them,  to 
the  fields  of  bloody  strife  ?***** 

"Sir,  this  gigantic  crime  against  the  peace,  the  unity,  and  the  life 
of  the  nation,  is  to  make  eternal  the  hateful  domination  of  man  over 
the  souls  and  bodies  of  his  fellow  men.  These  sacrifices  of  property,  of 
health,  and  of  life,  these  appalling  sorrows  and  agonies  now  upon  us, 
are  all  the  merciless  inflictions  of  slavery,  in  its  gigantic  effort  to  found 
its  empire,  and  make  its  hateful  power  forever  dominant  in  Christian 
America.  ******* 

"  Sir,  under  the  new  Constitution,  framed  to  secure  the  blessings  of 
liberty,  slavery  strode  into  the  chambers  of  legislation,  the  halls  of 
justice,  the  mansion  of  the  Executive,  and  with  menaces  in  the  one  hand 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  vol.  51,  p.  1314. 

2.  Congressional  Globe,  vol.  51,  pp.  1320,  1323-4. 


THE  AMENDMENT  PROPOSED.  349 

and  bribes  in  the  other,  it  awed  the  timid  and  seduced  the  weak.  March 
ing  on  from  conquest  to  conquest,  crushing  where  it  could  not  awe, 
seduce,  or  corrupt,  slavery  saw  institutions  of  learning,  benevolence,  and: 
religion,  political  organizations  and  public  men,  aye,  and  the  people  too, 
bend  before  it  and  acknowledge  its  iron  rule.  Seizing  on  the  needed 
acquisitions  of  Louisiana  and  of  Florida,  to  extend  its  boundaries,  con 
solidate  its  power,  and  enlarge  its  sway,  slavery  crossed  the  Mississippi, 
and  there  established  its  barbarous  dominion  against  the  too  feeble  resist 
ance  of  a  not  yet  conquered  people.  Controlling  absolutely  the  policy 
of  the  South,  swaying  the  policy  of  the  nation,  impressing  itself  upon  the 
legislation,  the  sentiments,  and  opinions  of  the  North,  slavery  moved  on 
to  assured  dominion.  Under  its  aggressive  advances,  emancipation 
societies,  organized  by  the  men  of  the  revolutionary  era  in  the  first  bright 
ardor  of  secured  liberty,  one  by  one  disappeared,  presses  and  churches 
forgot  to  remember  those  in  bonds  as  bound  with  them,  and  recreant  sons 
disowned  the  sentiments,  opinions,  and  principles  of  a  glorious  ances 
try." 

He  then  rapidly  sketched  the  anti-slavery  legislation  of 
Congress  and  the  action  of  the  Executive,  and  thus  alluded 
to  the  proclamation  of  emancipation  : 

"  The  enforcement  of  this  proclamation  will  give  peace  and  order, 
freedom  and  unity,  to  a  now  distracted  country  ;  the  failure  to  enforce 
it  will  bring  with  it  discord  and  anarchy,  a  dissevered  Union,  and  a 
broken  nation.  *  *  *  But,  sir,  the  crowning  act  in  this  series  of  acts 
for  the  restriction  and  extinction  of  slavery  in  America,  is  this  proposed 
amendment  to  the  Constitution,  prohibiting  the  existence  of  slavery  for- 
evermore  in  the  republic  of  the  United  States." 

The  amendment  was  vigorously  opposed  by  the  senators 
from  Kentucky,  by  Saulsbury,  of  Delaware,  and  others. 

On  the  5th  of  April,  a  memorable  speech  in  favor  of  the 
amendment  was  made  by  Reverdy  Johnson,  of  Maryland. 
He  was  a  lawyer  of  great  learning,  had  been  Attorney  Gen 
eral,  was  a  contemporary  of  Webster,  Clay,  and  Calhoun, 
and  an  experienced  statesman,  and  represented  a  state  not 
included  in  the  emancipation  proclamation,  but  which  was 
by  its  own  action  throwing  off  the  burden  of  slavery.  His 
speech  attracted  marked  attention  in  the  Senate  and 
throughout  the  nation.  He  said,  among  other  things  : 

"  I  concurred,  and  concur  still,  in  the  judgment  of  the  great  apostle 
of  American  liberty,  the  author  of  that  declaration  which  is  to  live  through. 


35O  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

all  time  as  the  Magna  Charta  of  human  rights,  that  in  a  contest  between 
the  slave  to  throw  off  his  thralldom,  and  the  master  who  holds  him  to  it, 
the  God  of  justice  could  take  no  part  in  favor  of  the  latter."  *  *  * 
"  God  and  nature,  judging  by  the  history  of  the  past,  intend  us  to 
be  one.  Our  unity  is  written  in  the  mountains  and  rivers  in  which  we  all 
have  an  interest.  The  very  difference  of  climate  renders  each  important 
to  the  other,  and  alike  important.  That  mighty  horde,  which  from  time 
to  time  have  gone  from  the  Atlantic  imbued  with  the  principles  of  human 
freedom  which  animated  their  fathers  in  running  the  perils  of  the  mighty 
deep,  and  seeking  liberty  here,  are  now  there,  and,  as  they  have  said, 
they  will  continue  to  say  until  time  shall  be  no  more:  '  We  mean  that 
the  government  in  future  shall  be  as  in  the  past,  an  example  of  human 
freedom  for  the  light  and  example  of  the  world,  and  illustrating  in  the 
blessings  and  happiness  it  confers,  the  truth  of  the  principles  incorpor 
ated  into  the  Declaration  of  Independence  ;  that  life  and  liberty  are 
man's  inalienable  rights.'  "  ' 

As  to  the  power  of  the  President  to  free  the  slaves,  he 
said  : 

"  I  believe  that  it  is  the  rightful  exercise  of  a  belligerent  power  to 
emancipate  the  slaves  of  the  enemy,  if  we  can  get  possession  of  them, 
just  as  it  is  the  rightful  exercise  of  a  belligerent  right  to  take  any  other 
property  belonging  to  the  enemy,  which  may  be  taken  under  the  civilized 
rules  of  modern  warfare,  or  as  it  is  a  belligerent  right  to  capture  any 
other  person  of  the  enemy."  2 

Charles  Sumner  closed  the  debate  in  the  Senate,  bringing 
to  the  discussion  rich  stores  of  historic  illustration,  and  quot 
ing  largely  from  the  poets,  historians,  and  statesmen  of  the 
past  against  slavery.  "  The  amendment,"  said  he  "  will  give 
completeness  and  permanence  to  emancipation,  and  bring  the 
Constitution  into  harmony  with  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence."  He  desired  to  change  the  phraseology  of  the 
amendment,  so  that,  instead  of  using  the  language  of  the 
Ordinance  of  1787,  the  resolution  should  declare  the  "equal 
ity  of  all  persons  before  the  law"  and  he  referred  to  the 
constitutions  of  France  as  precedents.3  Senator  Howard,  of 
Michigan,  said  :  "  I  prefer  to  dismiss  all  reference  to  French 
constitutions  or  French  codes,  and  to  go  back  to  the  good 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  vol.  51,  p.  1424. 

2.  Congressional  Globe,  April  5tl),  1864. 

3.  Congressional  Globe,  April  Sth,  1864. 


THE  AMENDMENT  PROPOSED.  35  I 

old  Anglo-Saxon  language  employed  by  our  fathers  in  the 
Ordinance  of  1787 — language  well  understood,  and  which 
has  been  adjudicated  upon  repeatedly,  and,  I  may  add,  near 
and  dear  to  the  people  of  the  Northwestern  territory,  from 
whose  soil  slavery  was  excluded."  l 

Mr.  Sumner  withdrew  the  amendment  he  had  proposed, 
and  the  resolution,  on  the  8th  of  April,  1864,  passed  the 
Senate,  in  the  language  in  which  it  had  been  reported  by 
Mr.  Trumbull;  ayes,  thirty-eight;  noes,  six.  Senators  Hen- 
dricks,  of  Indiana,  and  McDougall,  of  California,  were  the 
only  senators  from  the  free  states  who  voted  against  it. 

The  honor  of  having  been  the  author  of  the  Ordinance 
of  1787,  has  been  claimed  by  Virginia,  for  Jefferson,  and  by 
Massachusetts,  through  Daniel  Webster,  for  "  one  Nathan 
Dane,"  but  it  has  been  settled  by  a  very  accurate  historical 
student8  that  its  real  author  was  Dr.  Cutler. 

No  one  will  ever  dispute  that  Senator  Trumbull  is  enti 
tled  to  the  honor  of  framing,  reporting,and  carrying  through 
the  Senate,  the  thirteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  a  measure  as  much  more  important 
when  compared  with  the  Ordinance,  as  the  whole  country  is 
more  important  than  the  Northwest  territory.  The  honor  of 
this  great  service  would,  in  most  countries  of  the  world, 
have  been  rewarded  with  a  title  of  high  nobility,  and  pecu 
niary  independence.  This  republic  will  not  be  so  ungrateful 
as  to  forget  to  whom  this  great  honor  is  due. 

The  resolution  having  passed  the  Senate,  the  main  diffi 
culty  was  to  come  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  There, 
it  was  well  known,  the  vote  would  be  close,  and  the  result 
uncertain. 

On  the  ist  of  January,  1864,  while  the  resolution  was 
pending  in  both  houses  of  Congress,  a  friend  8  of  the  Presi 
dent  called  at  the  White  House  to  pay  his  respects  and  the 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  April  8th,  1864. 

2.  Mr.  Poolc,  librarian  of  the  Chicago  Public  Library.  See  his  paper  on  the  Ordi 
nance  of  1787,  read  before  the  Chicago  Historical  Society. 

3.  The  Author. 


352  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

compliments  of  the  season.  After  congratulating  the  Presi 
dent  on  the  great  victories  which  had  been  achieved  in  the 
East  and  in  the  West,  and  the  brightening  prospects  of 
peace,  the  visitor  said: 

"  I  hope,  Mr.  President,  that  on  next  New  Year's  day  I 
may  have  the  pleasure  of  congratulating  you  on  three  events 
which  now  seem  very  probable." 

"  What  are  they  ?  "  said  he. 

"  First,  That  the  war  may  be  ended  by  the  complete 
triumph  of  the  Union  forces. 

"  Second,  That  slavery  may  be  abolished  and  prohibited 
throughout  the  Union  by  an  amendment  of  the  Constitu 
tion. 

"  Third,  That  Abraham  Lincoln  may  have  been  re-elected 
President." 

"  I  think,"  replied  he,  with  a  smile,  "  I  think,  my  friend, 
I  would  be  willing  to  accept  the  first  two  by  way  of  com 
promise." 

It  has  already  been  stated  that  propositions  for  the 
amendment  had  been  offered  in  the  House  by  Ashley,  of 
Ohio,  and  Wilson,  of  Iowa.  The  President  was  extremely 
anxious  about  the  vote  in  the  House,  and  very  often,  with 
the  friends  of  the  measure,  canvassed  the  House  to  see  if 
the  requisite  number  could  be  obtained,  but  we  could  never 
count  a  two-thirds  vote.  One  day,  after  we  had  been  specu 
lating  on  the  probabilities  of  the  passage  of  the  resolution, 
the  author  said:  "  I  will  test  our  strength.  I  will  introduce 
a  resolution  as  a  feeler.  I  will  make  it  just  as  simple  as  I 
can,  and  we  will  have  a  test  vote  ; "  and  so,  on  the  i5th  of 
February,  1864,  the  author  had  the  honor  to  introduce  into 
the  House  the  following: 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Constitution  should  be  so  amended 
as  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  United  States  wherever  it  now 
exists,  and  to  prohibit  its  existence  in  every  part  thereof 
forever." *  This  resolution  was  adopted  by  a  decided 
majority,  but  not  by  a  majority  of  two-thirds,  and  it  is 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  vol.  50,  p.  659. 


THE  AMENDMENT  PROPOSED.  353 

believed  that  it  was  the  first  resolution  ever  adopted  for  the 
entire  abolition  of  slavery.  But,  although  it  did  not  pass  by 
two-thirds,  yet  it  enabled  us  to  know  our  strength,  and  just 
how  many  votes  were  needed  to  carry  us  through. 

The  discussion  in  the  House  began  on  the  i9th  of 
March,  and  a  vote  was  not  reached  until  the  i5th  of  June. 
Mr.  Wilson,  of  Iowa,  who  on  the  first  day  of  the  session  had 
given  notice  of  his  Constitutional  amendment,  and  who  had 
introduced  a  joint  resolution  for  that  purpose,  made  a  very 
able  and  logical  argument  in  favor  of  its  adoption.  His; 
proposition  was  that  "  slavery  is  incompatible  with  a  free 
government,"  and  he  demonstrated  that  proposition.  He 
said:  "What  are  the  thunders  of  this  war  but  the  voice  of 
God  calling  upon  the  nation  to  return  from  the  evil  paths, 
made  rough  by  errors  and  misfortunes,  blunders  and  crimesy 
made  slippery  by  the  warm,  smoking  blood  of  our  brothers 
and  friends,  to  the  grand  highway  of  prosperity,  happiness,, 
glory,  and  peace  in  which  He  planted  the  feet  of  the  fathers. 
Can  we  not  hear  amid  the  awful  rushing  roar  of  this  war- 
storm  the  voice  of  Him  who  rides  upon  the  whirlwind,  and 
rules  the  tempest,  saying:  <  You  cannot  have  peace  until 
you  secure  liberty  to  all  who  are  subject  to  your  laws.'  "  l 

On  the  same  day,  Mr.  Arnold,  of  Illinois,  spoke  in  favor 
of  the  resolution.  Among  other  things  he  said  : 

"  Our  aim  is  national  unity  without  slavery.  Not  '  the  Union  as  it 
was,  and  the  Constitution  as  it  is,'  but  a  nation  without  slavery,  the  Con 
stitution  the  Magna  Charta  which  shall  secure  liberty  to  all.  *  * 
The  wandering  stars  must  be  brought  back  with  their  lustre  brightened 
by  the  ordeal  through  which  they  have  passed.  *  *  We  can  have  no 
national  harmony  and  union  without  freedom.  The  fearful  error  of 
uniting  free  and  slave  states,  we  shall  never  repeat.  But  if  the  grand 
idea  can  be  realized  of  a  free,  homogeneous  people,  united  in  a  great 
continental  republic  based  on  liberty  for  all,  and  retaining  the  great  prin 
ciples  of  Magna  Charta,  we  shall  see  realized  the  noblest  structure  of 
government  and  national  polity  ever  organized  on  earth.  *  *  *  It 
is  the  duty  of  the  Executive,  by  the  sword,  and  by  war,  to  destroy  all 
armed  opposition.  Everything  necessary  to  accomplish  this,  consistent 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  March  19th,  1864,  1st  Session  38th  Congress,  p.  1203. 
23 


354  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

with  the  rules  of  war  as  recognized  by  civilized  nations,  he  may  rightfully 
do.  He  may  emancipate  and  arm  slaves,  arrest  and  confine  dangerous 
enemies,  and  thus  prevent  the  execution  of  treasonable  designs,  and  sup 
press,  for  the  time,  treasonable  publications.  All  this  may  be  done 
under  the  rules  of  war,  and  in  the  exercise  of  the  powers  vested  in  the 
Executive  of  carrying  the  war  against  public  enemies  and  traitors."  1 
*  *  "  Slavery  is  the  soul,  body,  and  spirit  of  the  rebellion. 
It  is  slavery  which  marshals  yonder  rebel  hosts  which  confront  the 
armies  of  Grant  and  Sherman.  *  *  * 

"  In  view  of  all  the  long  catalogue  of  wrongs  which  slavery  has 
inflicted  upon  the  country,  I  demand  to-day  of  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States,  the  death  of  African  slavery.  We  can  have  no  perma 
nent  peace  while  slavery  lives.  It  now  reels  and  staggers  towards 
its  last  death  struggle.  Let  us  strike  the  monster  this  last  decisive 
blow. 

"  The  Thirty-seventh  Congress  will  live  in  history  as  the  Congress 
which  prohibited  slavery  in  all  the  territories  of  the  Union,  and  abolished 
it  at  the  national  capital.  The  President  of  the  United  States  will  be 
remembered  as  the  author  of  the  proclamation  of  emancipation,  as  the 
liberator  of  a  race,  the  apostle  of  freedom,  the  great  emancipator  of  his 
country.  The  Thirty-eighth  Congress,  if  we  pass  this  joint  resolution, 
will  live  in  history  as  that  which  consummated  the  great  work  of  freeing 
a  continent  from  the  curse  of  human  bondage.  Never,  since  the  day 
when  John  Adams  plead  for  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  has  so 
important  a  question  been  submitted  to  an  American  Congress,  as  that 
upon  which  you  are  now  about  to  vote.  The  signing  of  the  immortal 
Declaration  is  a  familiar  picture  in  every  log  cabin  and  home  all  over  the 
land.  Pass  this  resolution,  and  the  vote  which  knocks  off  the  fetters  of  a 
whole  race,  will  make  this  scene  immortal.  Live  a  century,  nay  a  thou 
sand  years,  and  no  such  opportunity  to  do  a  great  deed  for  humanity, 
for  liberty,  for  peace,  and  for  your  country,  will  ever  again  present  itself. 
Pass  this  joint  resolution,  and  you  will  win  a  victory  over  wrong  and 
injustice,  lasting  as  eternity.  The  whole  world  will  rise  up  to  do  you 
honor.  Every  lover  of  liberty  in  Germany,  France,  Italy,  Great  Britain, 
the  world,  will  rise  up  and  call  you  blessed.  The  gallant  soldiers  in  the 
field  who  are  giving  their  lives  for  liberty  and  union,  will  call  down  upon 
you  the  blessings  of  heaven.  Let  the  lightnings  of  God  (fit  instruments 
for  the  glorious  message)  transmit  to  the  toiling  and  struggling  soldiers 
of  Sherman,  and  Hunter,  and  Grant,  the  thrilling  words,  '  slavery  abol 
ished  forever,'  and  their  joyous  shouts  will  echo  over  the  land  and  strike 
terror  into  the  ranks  of  the  rebels  and  traitors  fighting  for  tyranny  and 
bondage.  The  thousands  of  wounded  in  the  hospitals  around  this  capital, 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  1st  Session  38th  Congress,  pp  1196-7. 


THE  AMENDMENT  PROPOSED.  355 

would  hail  the  intelligence  as  a  battle  fought,  and  a'great  victory  won." 
*  *  *  "  The  people  and  the  states  are  eager  and  impatient  to  ratify  it. 
Will  those  who  claim  to  represent  the  ancient  democracy  refuse  to  give 
the  people  an  opportunity  to  vote  upon  it  ?  Is  this  your  confidence  in 
the  loyal  masses  ?  The  passage  of  this  resolution  will  strike  the  rebellion 
at  the  heart.  I  appeal  to  border  state  men,  and  democrats  of  the  free 
states  ;  look  over  your  country  ;  see  the  bloody  footsteps  of  slavery.  See 
the  ruin  and  desolation  which  it  has  brought  upon  our  once  happy  land  ; 
and  I  ask,  why  stay  the  hand  now  ready  to  strike  down  to  death  the 
cause  of  all  these  evils  ?  Why  seek  to  prolong  the  life,  to  restore  to  vigor, 
the  institution  of  slavery,  now  needing  but  this  last  act  to  doom  it  to  ever 
lasting  death  and  damnation  ?  Gentlemen  may  flatter  themselves  with  the 
hope  of  a  restoration  of  the  slave  power  in  this  country.  '  The  Union 
as  it  was  ! '  It  is  a  dream  never  again  to  be  realized.  The  America  of 
the  past  is  gone  forever  !  A  new  nation  is  to  be  born  from  the  agony 
through  which  the  people  are  now  passing.  This  new  nation  is  to  be 
wholly  free.  Liberty,  equality  before  the  law,  is  to  be  the  great  corner 
stone.  Much  yet  remains  to  be  done  to  secure  this.  Many  a  battle  on 
the  field  has  yet  to  be  fought  and  won  against  the  mighty  power  which 
fights  for  slavery,  the  barbarous  system  of  the  past.  Many  a  battle  has 
yet  to  be  won  in  the  higher  sphere  of  moral  conflict.  While  our  gallant 
soldiers  are  subduing  the  rebels  in  the  field,  let  us  second  their  efforts  by 
sweeping  from  the  statute  book  every  stay,  and  prop,  and  shield,  of 
human  slavery — the  scourge  of  our  country — and  let  us  crown  all  by 
incorporating  into  our  organic  law,  the  law  of  universal  liberty."  J 

Randall,  of  Pennsylvania,  a  leading  democrat  from  that 
state,  opposed  the  resolution.  He  said:  "  Let  the  Consti 
tution  alone.  It  is  good  enough.  Let  the  old  Constitutional 
tree  stand  in  all  its  fulness  and  beauty,  and  not  a  bough 
lopped  off,  and  under  its  green  branches  there  will  yet 
repose  a  united,  a  happy,  and  a  prosperous  people.  *  * 

' "  Woodman,  spare  that  tree  ! 
Touch  not  a  single  bough. 
In  youth  it  sheltered  me, 
And  I'll  protect  it  now.'  " 2 

Pendleton,  of  Ohio,  closed  the  debate  with  an  able 
speech  in  opposition  to  the  resolution.  On  the  i5th  of  June, 
1864,  the  vote  was  taken,  amidst  the  most  intense  solicitude 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  vol.  53,  p.  2988-89. 

a.  Congressional  Globe,  1st  Session  38th  Congress,  p.  2991. 


356  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

as  to  the  result.  The  vote  was:  ayes,  ninety-three,  noesy 
sixty-five — not  a  majority  of  two-thirds.  Thereupon  Ashley, 
of  Ohio,  changed  his  vote  from  aye  to  no,  to  enable  him 
to  move  a  reconsideration,  which  he  did,  and  pending  this 
the  resolution  went  over  to  the  next  session.  Lincoln  was 
chagrined  and  disappointed,  but  not  discouraged  by  the 
vote;  as  Henry  Clay  once  said  to  his  friends,  the  pioneer 
hunters  of  Kentucky,  "We  must  pick  our  flints  and  try 
again." 


CHAPTER    XXL 

PASSAGE  OF  THE  AMENDMENT. 

THE  PRESIDENT'S  MESSAGE. — His  PERSONAL  APPEAL  TO  ROLLINS 
AND  BORDER  STATES  MEMBERS. — SPEECHES  BY  VOORHEES,  KAS- 
SON,  WOODBRIDGE,  AND  GARFIELD. — THADDEUS  STEVENS  CLOSES 
THE  DEBATE. — THE  RESOLUTION  PASSES. — LINCOLN'S  SPEECH  ON 
ITS  PASSAGE. —  RATIFICATION  BY  THE  STATES. —  SEWARD  CERTI 
FIES  ITS  ADOPTION. 

WHEN  Congress  convened  on  the  5th  of  December,  1864, 
the  President,  in  his  annual  message,  earnestly  recommended 
and  urged  the  passage  of  the  Constitutional  amendment. 
Alluding  to  the  elections  which  had  lately  been  held,  he 
•said:  "  They  show  almost  certainly  that  the  next  Congress 
will  pass  the  measure  if  this  does  not.  Hence  there  is  only 
a  question  of  time  as  to  when  the  proposed  amendment  will 
go  to  the  states  for  their  action.  And  as  it  is  to  so  go,  at  all 
events  may  we  not  agree  that  the  sooner  the  better."  He 
^closed  by  saying:  "While  I  remain  in  my  present  position 
I  shall  not  attempt  to  retract  or  modify  the  emancipation 
proclamation,  nor  shall  I  return  to  slavery  any  person  who  is 
free  by  the  terms  of  that  proclamation,  or  by  any  of  the  acts 
•of  Congress.  If  the  people  should,  by  whatever  mode  or 
means,  make  it  an  Executive  duty  to  re-enslave  such  persons; 
.another,  and  not  I  must  be  their  instrument  to  perform  it." 
He  thus  linked  his  fortunes  with  the  cause  of  emancipation: 
•"  'Sink  or  swim,  live  or  die,  survive  or  perish,'  I  give  my 
heart  and  my  hand  to  this  measure." 

Just  before  the  meeting  of  the  national  convention  at 
Baltimore,  in  1864,  to  nominate  candidates  for  President  and 

357 


358  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Vice  President — which  will  be  more  fully  described  here 
after — Senator  Morgan,  of  New  York,  chairman  of  the 
national  republican  committee,  at  the  request  of  the  Presi 
dent  called  at  the  White  House,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  said  him: 
"  Senator  Morgan,  I  want  you  to  mention  in  your  speech 
when  you  call  the  convention  to  order,  as  its  key  note,  and 
to  put  into  the  platform  as  the  key-stone,  the  amendment  of 
the  Constitution  abolishing  and  prohibiting  slavery  forever." 
This  was  done,  the  amendment  was  thus  made  the  promin 
ent  issue,  and  was  sanctioned  by  the  people. 

Mr.  Lincoln  hoped  to  induce  some  of  the  border  state 
members,  and  war  democrats  who  had  at  the  last  session 
voted  against  the  proposition,  to  change  their  votes.  To 
this  end  he  sought  interviews  with  them,  and  urged  them  to 
vote  for  the  amendment.  Among  them  was  Mr.  Rollins,  a 
distinguished  member  of  Congress  from  Missouri,  and  a 
warm  personal  friend.  Mr.  Rollins  says: 

"  The  President  had  several  times  in  my  presence  expressed  his  deep 
anxiety  in  favor  of  the  passage  of  this  great  measure.  He  and  others 
had  repeatedly  counted  votes  in  order  to  ascertain,  as  far  as  they  could, 
the  strength  of  the  measure  upon  a  second  trial  in  the  House.  He  was 
doubtful  about  its  passage,  and  some  ten  days  or  two  weeks  before  it 
came  up  for  consideration  in  the  House,  I  received  a  note  from  him, 
written  in  pencil  on  a  card,  while  sitting  at  my  desk  in  the  House,  stat 
ing  that  he  wished  to  see  me,  and  asking  that  I  call  on  him  at  the  White 
House.  I  responded  that  I  would  be  there  the  next  morning  at  nine 
o'clock.  I  was  prompt  in  calling  upon  him  and  found  him  alone  in  his 
office.  He  received  me  in  the  most  cordial  manner,  and  said  in  his  usual 
familiar  way:  '  Rollins,  I  have  been  wanting  to  talk  to  you  for  some 
time  about  the  thirteenth  amendment  proposed  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  which  will  have  to  be  voted  on  now,  before  a  great 
while.'  I  said  :  '  Well,  I  am  here,  and  ready  to  talk  upon  that  subject.' 
He  said  :  '  You  and  I  were  old  whigs,  both  of  us  followers  of  that 
great  statesman,  Henry  Clay,  and  I  tell  you  I  never  had  an  opinion 
upon  the  subject  of  slavery  in  my  life  that  I  did  not  get  from  him.  I 
am  very  anxious  that  the  war  should  be  brought  to  a  close  at  the  earliest 
possible  date,  and  I  don't  believe  this  can  be  accomplished  as  long  as  those 
fellows  down  South  can  rely  upon  the  border  states  to  help  them;  but  if 
the  members  from  the  border  states  would  unite,  at  least  enough  of  them, 
to  pass  the  thirteenth  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  they  would  soon 


PASSAGE  OF  THE  AMENDMENT.  359 

see  that  they  could  not  expect  much  help  from  that  quarter,  and  be  will 
ing  to  give  up  their  opposition  and  quit  their  war  upon  the  government ; 
this  is  my  chief  hope  and  main  reliance  to  bring  the  war  to  a  speedy 
close,  and  I  have  sent  for  you  as  an  old  whig  friend  to  come  and  see  me, 
that  I  might  make  an  appeal  to  you  to  vote  for  this  amendment.  It  is 
going  to  be  very  close,  a  few  votes  one  way  or  the  other  will  decide  it.' 

"  To  this  I  responded  :  '  Mr.  President,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned 
you  need  not  have  sent  for  me  to  ascertain  my  views  on  this  subject,  for 
although  I  represent  perhaps  the  strongest  slave  district  in  Missouri, 
and  have  the  misfortune  to  be  one  of  the  largest  slave-owners  in  the 
county  where  I  reside,  I  had  already  determined  to  vote  for  the  thirteenth 
amendment.'  He  arose  from  his  chair,  and  grasping  me  by  the  hand, 
gave  it  a  hearty  shake,  and  said  :  '  I  am  most  delighted  to  hear  that.' 

"  He  asked  me  how  many  more  of  the  Missouri  delegates  in  the 
House  would  vote  for  it.  I  said  I  could  not  tell ;  the  republicans  of 
course  would  ;  General  Loan,  Mr.  Blow,  Mr.  Boyd,  and  Colonel 
McClurg.  He  said  :  '  Won't  General  Price  vote  for  it  ?  He  is  a  good 
Union  man.'  I  said  I  could  not  answer.  '  Well,  what  about  Governor 
King?  '  I  told  him  I  did  not  know.  He  then  asked  about  Judges 
Hall  and  Norton.  I  said  they  would  both  vote  against  it,  I  thought. 

"  'Well,'  he  said,  'are  you  on  good  terms  with  Price  and  King?' 
I  responded  in  the  affirmative,  and  that  I  was  on  easy  terms  with  the 
entire  delegation.  He  then  asked  me  if  I  would  not  talk  with  those  who 
might  be  persuaded  to  vote  for  the  amendment,  and  report  to  him  as 
soon  as  I  could  find  out  what  the  prospect  was.  I  answered  that  I 
would  do  so  with  pleasure,  and  remarked  at  the  same  time,  that  when  I 
was  a  young  man,  in  1848,  I  was  the  whig  competitor  of  King  for  Gov 
ernor  of  Missouri  and  as  he  beat  me  very  badly,  I  thought  now  he  should 
pay  me  back  by  voting  as  I  desired  him  on  this  important  question.  I 
promised  the  President  I  would  talk  to  this  gentleman  upon  the  subject. 
He  said  :  '  I  would  like  you  to  talk  to  all  the  border  state  men  whom 
you  can  approach  properly,  and  tell  them  of  my  anxiety  to  have  the 
measure  pass  ;  and  let  me  know  the  prospect  of  the  border  state  vote,' 
which  I  promised  to  do.  He  again  said  :  '  The  passage  of  this  amend 
ment  will  clinch  the  whole  subject  ;  it  will  bring  the  war,  I  have  no 
doubt,  rapidly  to  a  close.'"  l 

The  debate  on  the  subject  in  the  House  began  on  the 
6th  of  January,  1865.  Ashley  of  Ohio  and  Orth  of  Indi 
ana  spoke  in  its  favor.  Voorhees  of  Indiana  opposed  it, 
saying  : 

1.  Lincoln  Memorial  Album,  pp.  491,  2,  3. 


360  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  When  the  sky  shall  again  be  clear  over  our  heads,  a  peaceful  sun 
illuminating  the  land,  and  our  great  household  of  states  all  at  home 
in  harmony  once  more,  then  will  be  the  time  to  consider  what  changes, 
if  any,  this  generation  desire  to  make  in  the  work  of  Washington,  Madi 
son,  and  the  revered  sages  of  our  antiquity."  l 

Mr.  Kasson,  of  Iowa,  said  : 

"  I  would  rather  stand  solitary,  with  my  name  recorded  for  this 
amendment,  than  to  have  all  the  honors  which  could  be  heaped  upon  me 
by  any  party  in  opposition  to  this  proposition."2 

Mr.  Woodbridge,  of  Vermont,  said: 

"Coming  from  the  Green  Mountain  state,  where  a  good  old  judge 
fifty  years  ago  said  to  a  claimant,  who  claimed  and  presented  a  bill  of 
sale  for  a  slave:  '  Show  me  a  bill  of  sale  from  God  Almighty,  and  your 
title  will  be  recognized,'  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  say  that  in  my 
judgment  there  can  be  no  property  in  man.  *  *  *  I  want  this  reso 
lution  to  pass,  and  then,  when  it  (the  war)  does  end,  the  beautiful  statue 
of  liberty  which  now  crowns  the  majestic  dome  above  our  heads  may 
look  north  and  south,  east  and  west,  upon  a  free  nation,  untarnished  by 
aught  inconsistent  with  freedom  ;  redeemed,  regenerated,  and  disen 
thralled  by  the  genius  of  universal  emancipation."  3 

As  has  been  said,  one  of  the  very  ablest  speeches  in 
favor  of  the  amendment  was  made  by  Rollins  of  Missouri. 
He  said  : 

"The  convention  which  recently  assembled  in  my  state,  I  learned 
from  a  telegram  a  morning  or  two  ago,  had  adopted  an  amendment  to 
our  present  state  constitution,  for  the  immediate  emancipation  of  all  the 
slaves  in  the  state.  I  am  no  longer  the  owner  of  a  slave,  and  I  thank 
God  for  it.  If  the  giving  up  of  my  slaves  without  complaint  shall 
be  a  contribution  upon  my  part,  to  promote  the  public  good,  to  uphold 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  to  restore  peace  and  preserve  this 
Union,  if  1  had  owned  a  thousand  slaves,  they  would  most  cheerfully  have 
been  given  up.  I  say  with  all  my  heart,  let  them  go  ;  but  let  them  not  go 
without  a  sense  of  feeling  and  a  proper  regard  on  my  part  for  the  future 
of  themselves  and  their  offspring."  4 

Of  the  power  of  the  slaveholders  in  ruling  the  republic, 
he  used  the  following  language  : 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  38th  Congress,  p.  141. 

2.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  38th  Congress,  p.  193. 

3.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  38th  Congress,  pp.  243-4. 

4.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  38th  Congress,  pp.  258-60. 


PASSAGE  OF  THE  AMENDMENT. 

"  Sir,  the  peculiar  friends  of  slavery  have  controlled  the  govern 
ment  for  much  the  greater  part  of  the  time  since  its  establishment,  and 
but  for  their  own  wickedness  and  folly  might  have  saved  the  institution, 
and  had  their  full  share  in  its  management  for  many  years  to  come.  If 
they  have  lost  the  political  control,  all  are  blameless  save  themselves  ! 

"  '  But  yesterday,  the  word  of  Caesar  might 

Have  stood  against  the  world;  now  lies  he  there, 
And  none  so  poor  to  do  him  reverence.'  " 

Of  the  necessity  of  abolishing  slavery  to  secure  perma 
nent  peace,  he  said  : l 

"We  never  can  have  an  entire  peace  as  long  as  the  institution  of 
slavery  remains  as  one  of  the  recognized  institutions  of  the  country.  It 
occurs  to  me  that  the  surest  way  to  obtain  peace  is  to  dispose  of  the  insti 
tution  now." 

Of  Mr.  Lincoln's  proposition  for  compensated  emancipa 
tion,  he  said  : 

"  And,  sir,  if  ever  a  people  made  a  mistake  on  earth,  it  was  the  men 
of  Kentucky,  by  whom  I  was  somewhat  governed  myself,  when  three 
years  ago  they  rejected  the  offer  of  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
who,  wiser  than  we  were,  seeing  the  difficulties  before  us,  but  seeing  the 
bow  of  promise  set  in  the  sky,  and  knowing  what  was  to  come,  proposed 
to  us  to  sweep  the  institution  of  slavery  from  the  border  states,  offering 
the  assistance  of  the  United  States,  to  aid  in  compensating  the  loyal  men 
of  those  states  for  their  losses  in  labor  and  property." 

Of  the  effects  of  slavery  upon  Missouri,  he  eloquently 
said  : 

"  I  come  now  to  speak  a  word  in  reference  to  my  own  state  of  Mis 
souri.  She  came  into  the  Union  as  it  were  in  the  midst  of  a  revolution. 
For  the  purpose  only  of  having  a  few  thousand  slaves  there,  the  whole 
continent  shook  with  the  agitation  of  this  Missouri  question.  We  were 
fighting  for  the  privilege  of  holding  a  few  slaves  in  bondage  in  that  great 
state.  We  forgot  the  paramount  good  in  this  miserable  struggle.  *  * 
Look  at  Illinois,  just  across  the  Father  of  Waters.  She  came  into  the 
Union  in  1818,  two  years  before  Missouri,  and  with  less  population, 
fewer  mineral  resources,  not  so  many  rivers,  no  better  facilities  for  com 
merce,  yet  she  has  four  thousand  miles  of  railroad,  while  Missouri  has 
only  twelve  hundred.  Illinois  has  a  prosperous,  happy,  and  peaceful 
population  of  two  millions;  while  we  have  only  half  this  number,  and 
our  people  are  leaving  in  every  direction,  seeking  homes  in  the  terri- 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  38th  Congress,  pp.  260-61. 


362  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

tories,  in  the  distant  mountains,  in  South  America,  in  Mexico,  in  Illinois,, 
flying  away  from  the  horrible  spectre  of  this  infernal  rebellion.  Why  is 
this?  I  know  of  but  one  real,  substantial,  specific  reason,  and  that  is 
that  the  framers  of  the  Missouri  Constitution  allowed  slavery  to  remain, 
while  Illinois  was  made  forever  free  by  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  penned  by 
Thomas  Jefferson,  a  son  of  Virginia,  and  by  which  Virginia  ceded  an 
empire  within  itself  (the  Northwestern  territory)  to  the  United  States." 

He  then  indulged  in  the  following  predictions  of  the 
future : 

"  When  the  poor  and  humble  farmers  and  mechanics  of  Alabama 
and  Mississippi  shall  have  left  the  bloody  trials  in  which  they  are  now 
engaged  to  tear  down  this  temple  of  human  liberty;  when  they  wTill  return 
perhaps  to  their  desolated  homes;  when  they  shall  look  once  more  upon 
and  hug  to  their  bosoms  the  wives  and  children  whom  they  love, 
in  poverty  and  in  rags;  when  they  will  go,  perhaps,  without  an  arm,  or 
without  an  eye,  or  without  a  leg,  and  in  poverty,  to  those  who  are  depend 
ent  upon  them  for  support  in  life;  taught  by  experience,  they  will  ask 
the  question  of  themselves:  '  Why  all  this?  What  have  we  been  fighting 
for? '  They  will  bring  to  mind  the  sweet  memories  of  other  days.  They 
will  remember  the  peaceful  and  happy  home  which  they  were  induced  to 
leave,  and  which  they  enjoyed  under  the  benign  influences  of  wholesome 
and  liberal  laws  passed  here,  and  they  will  inquire:  '  By  what  sophistry, 
by  what  appeal,  by  what  force,  by  what  maddening  influence  is  it  that  we 
have  been  induced  to  enter  into  this  terrible  rebellion  ? '  Not  to  promote 
any  interest  of  wife  and  children,  but  to  destroy  all  the  blessings  vouchsafed 
to  us  and  to  them  by  a  free  government  and  equitable  laws;  and  they 
will  further  ask:  '  Who  has  been  the  author  of  my  misfortunes,  and  the 
ruin  of  my  family,  my  all  ?  '  Sir,  they  will  point  to  those  who  hold  the 
power  at  Richmond;  they  will  direct  their  vengeance  against  them;  and 
Davis  and  his  traitorous  crew,  as  I  have  said  upon  a  former  occasion, 
will,  like  Actaeon  of  old,  be  in  the  end  destroyed  by  their  own  friends." 

The  speech  of  Garfield  of  Ohio,  afterwards  President, 
was  especially  able  and  interesting.  As  a  soldier  he  had 
already  won  the  rank  and  laurels  of  a  Major  General.  His 
victory  over  Humphrey  Marshall,  at  Middle  Creek,  and  the 
brilliant  record  he  made  at  Chickamauga,  had  been  rewarded 
by  the  President  with  the  commission  of  Major  General, 
dated  on  the  day  of  that  battle.  He  now  represented  the 
district  in  Ohio  known  as  the  Giddings  district,  and  his 
manly  appearance,  his  ruddy  complexion,  bronzed  by  expos- 


PASSAGE  OF  THE  AMENDMENT.  363 

ure  and  hardship  as  a  soldier,  as  well  as  his  fervid  eloquence, 
attracted  general  attention.  His  speech  was  mainly  in  reply 
to  his  colleague,  Pendleton,  was  full  of  classical  allusions, 
and  gave  evidence  of  scholarship  and  culture.  He  said  : 

"  Who  does  not  remember  that  thirty  years  ago,  a  short  period  in 
the  life  of  a  nation,  but  little  could  be  said  with  impunity  in  these  halls 
on  the  subject  of  slavery  ?  How  well  do  gentlemen  here  remember  the 
history  of  that  distinguished  predecessor  of  mine,  Joshua  R.  Giddings, 
lately  gone  to  his  rest,  who,  with  his  forlorn  hope  of  faithful  men,  took 
his  life  in  his  hands,  and  in  the  name  of  justice  protested  against  the 
great  crime,  and  who  stood  bravely  in  his  place  until  his  white  locks, 
like  the  plume  of  Henry  of  Navarre,  marked  where  the  battle  of  free 
dom  raged  fiercest  ?  We  can  hardly  realize  that  this  is  the  same  people, 
and  these  the  same  halls,  where  now  scarcely  a  man  can  be  found  who 
will  venture  to  do  more  than  falter  out  an  apology  for  slavery,  protesting 
at  the  same  time  that  he  has  no  love  for  the  dying  tyrant.  None,  I 
believe,  but  that  man  of  more  than  supernal  boldness  from  the  city  of 
New  York  [Mr.  Fernando  Wood]  has  ventured  this  session  to  raise  his 
voice  in  favor  of  slavery  for  its  own  sake.  He  still  sees  in  its  features 
the  reflection  of  divinity  and  beauty,  and  only  he.  'How  art  thou  fallen 
from  heaven,  O  Lucifer,  son  of  the  morning  ?  How  art  thou  cut  down 
to  the  ground,  which  didst  weaken  the  nations  !'  Many  mighty  men  have 
been  slain  by  thee  ;  many  proud  ones  have  humbled  themselves  at  thy 
feet  !  All  along  the  coast  of  the  political  sea  they  lie  like  stranded 
wrecks,  broken  on  the  headlands  of  freedom.  How  lately  did  its  advo 
cates  with  impious  boldness  maintain  it  as  '  God's  own,'  to  be  venerated 
and  cherished  as  divine.  It  was  another  and  higher  form  of  civilization. 
It  was  the  holy  evangel  of  America,  dispensing  its  blessings  to  the  wil 
derness  of  the  West.  In  its  mad  arrogance  it  lifted  its  hands  to  strike 
down  the  fabric  of  the  Union,  and  since  that  fatal  day,  it  has  been  a 
fugitive  and  a  vagabond  upon  the  earth,  and  like  the  spirit  that  Jesus 
cast  out,  it  has  since  then  been  '  seeking  rest,  and  finding  none.'  " 

And  now,  on  the  i3th  of  January,  came  Thaddeus  Ste 
vens,  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  and 
the  recognized  leader  of  the  House,  to  close  the  debate. 
As  he  came  limping  with  his  club  foot  along  down  the  aisle 
from  his  committee  room,  the  members  gathered  thickly 
around  him.  He  was  tall  and  commanding  in  person,  and 
although  venerable  with  years,  his  form  was  unbent  and  his 
intellect  undimmed.  The  galleries  had  already  been  filled 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  38th  Congress,  p.  263. 


364  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

with  the  most  distinguished  people  in  Washington.  As  the 
word  ran  through  the  Capitol  that  Stevens  was  speaking  on 
the  Constitutional  Amendment,  senators  came  over  from  the 
Senate,  lawyers  and  judges  from  the  court  rooms,  and  dis 
tinguished  soldiers  and  citizens  filled  every  available  seat,  to 
hear  the  eloquent  old  man  speak  on  a  measure  that  was  to 
consummate  the  warfare  of  forty  years  against  slavery. 
Reviewing  the  past,  he  said  : 

"  When,  fifteen  years  ago,  I  was  honored  with  a  seat  in  this  body, 
it  was  dangerous  to  talk  against  this  institution,  a  danger  which  gentle 
men  now  here  will  never  be  able  to  appreciate.  Some  of  us,  however, 
have  experienced  it  ;  my  friend  from  Illinois  on  my  right  [Mr.  Wash- 
burne]  has.  And  yet,  sir,  I  did  not  hesitate,  in  the  midst  of  bowie 
knives  and  revolvers,  and  howling  demons  upon  the  other  side  of  the 
House,  to  stand  here  and  denounce  this  infamous  institution  in  language 
which  possibly  now,  on  looking  at  it,  I  might  deem  intemperate,  but 
which  I  then  deemed  necessary  to  rouse  the  public  attention,  and  cast 
odium  upon  the  worst  institution  upon  earth,  one  which  is  a  disgrace  to 
man,  and  would  be  an  annoyance  to  the  infernal  spirits 

"  Perhaps  I  ought  not  to  occupy  so  much  time,  and  I  will  only  say 
one  word  further.  So  far  as  the  appeals  of  the  learned  gentleman  [Mr. 
Pendleton]  are  concerned,  his  pathetic  winding  up,  I  will  be  willing  to 
take  my  chance  when  we  all  molder  in  the  dust.  He  may  have  his 
epitaph  written,  if  it  be  truly  written,  '  Here  rests  the  ablest  and  most 
pertinacious  defender  of  slavery  and  opponent  of  liberty,'  and  I  will  be 
satisfied  if  my  epitaph  shall  be  written  thus:  '  Here  lies  one  who  never 
rose  to  any  eminence,  and  who  only  courted  the  low  ambition  to  have  it 
said  that  he  had  striven  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  poor,  the  lowly, 
the  downtrodden  of  every  race  and  language  and  color.' 

"  I  shall  be  content,  with  such  an  eulogy  on  his  lofty  tomb,  and 
such  an  inscription  on  my  humble  grave,  to  trust  our  memories  to  the 
judgment  of  other  ages. 

"  We  have  suffered  for  slavery  more  than  all  the  plagues  of  Egypt. 
More  than  the  first  born  of  every  household  has  been  taken.  We  still 
harden  our  hearts,  and  refuse  to  let  the  people  go.  The  scourge  still 
continues,  nor  do  I  expect  it  to  cease  until  we  obey  the  behests  of  the 
Father  of  men.  We  are  about  to  ascertain  the  national  will  by  an  amend 
ment  to  the  Constitution.  If  the  gentlemen  opposite  will  yield  to  the 
voice  of  God  and  humanity  and  vote  for  it,  I  verily  believe  the  sword  of 
the  destroying  angel  will  be  stayed,  and  this  people  be  re-united.  If  we  still 


PASSAGE  OF  THE  AMENDMENT.  365 

harden  our  hearts,  and  blood  must  still   flow,  may  the  ghosts  of  the 
slaughtered  victims  sit  heavily  upon  the  souls  of  those  who  cause  it."  l 

The  vote  on  the  passage  of  the  resolution  was  taken 
amidst  the  most  intense  anxiety  and  solicitude.  Up  to  the 
last  roll  call  no  one  knew  what  the  result  would  be.  Demo 
cratic  votes  were  needed  to  carry  the  measure.  We  knew 
we  should  get  some,  but  whether  enough  none  could  tell.. 
The  most  intense  anxiety  was  felt,  and  as  the  clerk  called 
the  names  of  members,  so  perfect  was  the  silence  that  the 
sound  of  a  hundred  pencils,  keeping  tally  as  the  names 
were  called  and  recorded,  could  be  heard.  When  the  name 
of  Governor  English,  a  democrat  from  Connecticut,  was 
called,  and  he  voted  aye,  there  was  great  applause  on  the 
floor  and  in  the  crowded  galleries,  and  this  was  repeated 
when  Ganson,  Nelson,  Odell,  and  other  democrats  from  New 
York  responded  aye.  The  clerk  handed  the  vote  to  the 
speaker,  Colfax,  who  announced  in  breathless  silence  the 
result:  ayes,  one  hundred  and  nineteen;  noes,  fifty-six.  Every 
negative  vote  was  given  by  a  democrat. 

When  the  speaker  made  the  formal  announcement: 
"  The  constitutional  majority  of  two-thirds  having  voted  in 
the  affirmative,  the  joint  resolution  is  passed,"  it  was  received 
with  an  uncontrollable  outburst  of  enthusiasm.  The  repub 
lican  members,  regardless  of  the  rules,  instantly  sprang  to- 
their  feet  and  applauded  with  cheers.  The  example  was 
followed  by  the  spectators  in  the  galleries,  who  waved  their 
hats  "and  their  handkerchiefs,  and  cheers  and  congratula 
tions  continued  for  many  minutes.  Finally,  Mr.  Ingersoll 
of  Illinois,  representing  the  district  of  Owen  Lovejoy,  in 
honor,  as  he  said,  of  the  sublime  event,  moved  that  the 
House  adjourn.  The  motion  was  carried,  but  before  the 
members  left  their  seats  the  roar  of  artillery  from  Capitol 
Hill  announced  to  the  people  of  Washington  that  the  amend 
ment  had  passed  Congress.  The  personal  friends  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  hastening  to  the  White  House,  exchanged  con 
gratulations  with  him  on  the  auspicious  result.  The  pass- 

1.  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session  38th  Congress,  p.  124. 


366  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

age  of  the  resolution  filled  his  heart  with  joy.  He  saw  in  it 
the  complete  consummation  of  his  own  great  work,  the 
emancipation  proclamation. 

On  the  following  evening  a  vast  crowd  of  rejoicing  and 
enthusiastic  friends,  with  music,  marched  to  the  White 
House,  publicly  to  congratulate  the  President  on  the  pass 
age  of  the  joint  resolution.  Arriving  at  the  Executive 
Mansion,  the  band  played  national  airs,  and  as  Mr.  Lincoln 
appeared  at  a  window  over  the  portico  he  was  greeted  with 
the  greatest  enthusiasm.  When  the  cheering  had  subsided, 
his  whole  form  and  every  feature  radiant  with  joy,  raising 
his  arm,  he  slowly  said: 

"  The  great  job  is  ended."  *  *  "  The  occasion  is  one 
of  congratulation,  and  I  cannot  but  congratulate  all  present, 
myself,  the  country,  and  the  whole  world  upon  this  great 
moral  victory.  The  amendment,"  he  continued,  "  has 
already  been  ratified  by  Illinois,  and  Maryland  is  half 
through,  but  I  feel  proud,"  said  he,  "  that  Illinois  is  a  little 
ahead.  *  *  This  ends  the  job." 

Yes,  and  it  was  the  brave  heart,  the  clear,  sagacious 
brain,  the  indomitable  but  patient  will  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
that  carried  through  the  great  revolution.  There  remained 
now  but  a  few  more  battles,  a  few  more  victories,  and  all 
would  be  won,  and  a  free  and  united  republic  established 
from  the  lakes  to  the  gulf,  and  then  the  work  of  the  prairie 
statesman  would  be  finished.  He  would  have  fully  vindi 
cated  his  right  to  be  called  one  "  of  the  family  of  the  lion 
and  the  tribe  of  the  eagle."  The  dream  of  his  youth,  the 
prophecy  of  his  manhood  would  be  realized.  As  yet  no 
dark  shadow,  no  presentiment  of  death  rose  on  the  landscape 
of  the  future. 

When  in  June,  1858,  at  his  home  in  Springfield,  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  startled  the  people  by  the  declaration:  "This 
nation  cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free," 
and  when  in  concluding  that  very  remarkable  speech,  with 
prophetic  voice,  uplifted  eye,  and  the  inspired  mien  of  a 
seer,  he  exclaimed:  "We  shall  not  fail  ;  if  we  stand  firm  we 


PASSAGE  OF  THE  AMENDMENT.  367 

shall  not  fail.  Wise  counsels  may  accelerate,  or  mistakes 
delay,  but  sooner  or  later  the  victory  is  sure  to  come."  He 
looked  to  long  years  of  political  controversy  ;  he  expected 
a  severe  struggle  and  a  final  triumph  through  the  use  of  all 
the  agencies  by  which  public  opinion  is  influenced  and 
formed  ;  and  he  anticipated  the  final  triumph  through  the 
ballot  box.  But  he  did  not  foresee,  unless  in  those  myste 
rious,  dim  shadows  which  sometimes  startle  by  half  reveal 
ing  the  future,  his  own  elevation  to  the  Presidency  ;  he  did 
not  foresee  that  he  should  be  chosen  by  God  and  the  people 
to  lead  on  to  that  victory  which  he  then  felt  was  sure  to 
come  ;  that  he  should  speak  the  word  which  should  emanci 
pate  a  race  and  free  his  country.  Nor  did  he  foresee  that 
a  martyr's  death  would  crown  a  life  which  was  so  consecrated 
to  duty,  a  life  which  was  to  be  from  that  day  forth  so  filled 
with  unselfish,  untiring  devotion  to  country  and  to  liberty, 
that  his  example  will  be  everlasting,  growing  brighter  with 
years  ;  forever  to  inspire  the  patriot,  and  give  courage  to 
those  who  labor,  and  struggle,  and  die,  for  the  poor  and  the 
oppressed  ;  until  in  all  the  world,  there  shall  be  left  no  slave 
to  be  freed,  no  oppressor  to  be  overthrown. 

As  has  been  stated,  Illinois,  under  the  inspiration  of  Lin 
coln,  took  the  lead  of  all  the  states  in  ratifying  the  amend 
ment.  Then  followed  Rhode  Island  and  Michigan,  and  on 
the  same  day,  the  2nd  of  February,  regenerated  Maryland  ; 
on  the  3rd,  and  keeping  pace  with  her,  were  New  York  and 
West  Virginia.  Then  Maine  and  Kansas,  Massachusetts  and 
Pennsylvania  ;  and  then  old  Virginia  and  Ohio  and  redeemed 
Missouri;  and  then  Nevada  and  Indiana,  and  Louisiana  and 
the  other  states  followed,  until  more  than  three-fourths  of 
all  ratified  the  amendment. 

It  was  a  proud  moment  when  William  H.  Seward,  on  the 
1 8th  of  November,  1865,  as  Secretary  of  State,  officially 
proclaimed  the  ratification  of  the  amendment  and  certified  * 

1.  The  following  correspondence  gives  in  a  semi-official  form  the  dates  of  the 
ratification  : 


368  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"that  the  same  had  become  to  all  intents  and  purposes  valid 
as  a  part  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  l 

WASHINGTON,  July  23,  1866. 
Hon.  W.  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State. 

My  Dear  Sir :  *  *  *  May  I  trouble  you  to  furnish  me  the  dates  at  which  the- 
several  states  adopted  the  Constitutional  amendment  prohibiting  slavery  forever 
throughout  the  republic,  and  a  copy  of  your  official  certificate  or  proclamation, 
announcing  such  ratification  by  the  requisite  number  of  states?  I  cannot  forbear 
congratulating  you  on  the  part  you  have  taken  In  this  great  revolution.  Few  have 
had  the  felicity  of  living  to  witness  such  glorious  results  from  their  labors.  How  few 
could  have  anticipated  when  you  began  your  anti-slavery  labors,  that  you  would  live 
to  officially  proclaim  that  "  slavery  is  no  more." 

Very  Respectfully  Yours, 

ISAAC    N.   ARNOLD. 

DEPARTMENT  or  STATE,  WASHINGTON,  August  22,  1866. 
ISAAC  N.  ARNOLD,  ESQ., 

Sir :  Your  letter  of  the  23d  ultimo,  asking  to  be  furnished  the  dates  at  which  the 
several  states  adopted  the  amendment  to  the  Constitution  prohibiting  slavery,  etc., 
was  duly  received;  but  owing  to  the  exigencies  of  public  business  in  this  Department, 
it  has  not  been  convenient  to  answer  it  until  now. 

The  dates  of  ratification  by  the  several  states,  up  to  this  time,  are  as  follows  : 
Illinois,  February  1st,  1865;  Rhode  Island,  February  2d,  1865;  Michigan,  February 
2d,  1865;  Maryland,  February  1st  and  3d,  1865;  New  York,  February  2d  and  3d,  1865; 
West  Virginia,  February  3d,  1865;  Maine,  February  7th,  1865;  Kansas,  February  7th, 
1865;  Massachusetts,  February  8th,  1865;  Pennsylvania,  February  8th,  1865;  Virginia, 
February  9th,  1865;  Ohio,  February  10th,  1865;  Missouri,  February  10th,  1865;  Ne 
vada,  February  16th,  1865;  Indiana,  February  16th,  1865;  Louisiana,  February  17th, 
1865;  Minnesota,  February  8th  and  23d,  1865;  Wisconsin,  March  1st,  1865;  Vermont, 
March  9th,  1865;  Tennessee,  April  5th  and  7th,  1865;  Arkansas,  April  20th,  1865;  Con 
necticut,  May  5th,  1865;  New  Hampshire,  July  1st,  1865;  South  Carolina,  November 
13th,  1865;  Alabama,  December  2d,  1865;  North  Carolina,  December  4th,  1865; 
Georgia,  December  9th,  1865;  Oregon,  December  llth,  1865;  California,  December 
20th,  1865;  Florida,  December  28th,  1865;  New  Jersey,  January  23d,  1866;  Iowa, 
January  24th,  1866. 

I  transmit  a  copy  of  the  certificate  of  ratification,  agreeably  to  your  request. 
Thanking  you  for  the  congratulations  with  which  you  conclude  your  letter. 
1  am,  Your  Obedient  Servant, 

WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD. 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

GRANT   AND   SHERMAN. 

GENERAL  GRANT  COMES  TO  THE  POTOMAC. —  SHERMAN  GOES 
THROUGH  DIXIE  TO  THE  OCEAN. — FORT  MCALLISTER  TAKEN. — 
SAVANNAH  FALLS. — THE  ALABAMA  is  SUNK. — FARRAGUT  CAP 
TURES  MOBILE. 

AGAIN  must  the  reader  return  with  us  to  the  fields  of 
war.  Grand  marches  are  yet  to  be  made,  bloody  battles  to 
be  fought,  carnage,  suffering,  desolation,  and  death  must 
yet  be  encountered  in  their  utmost  horror  before  the  end  of 
the  great  drama  is  reached.  But  the  result  of  it  all  is,  to  the 
intelligent  reader,  no  longer  doubtful. 

In  the  West,  victory  had  of  late  everywhere  attended  the 
Union  flag,  the  capture  of  Vicksburg  and  Port  Hudson 
having  been  followed  by  the  brilliant  victory  of  Missionary 
Ridge  and  Lookout  Mountain.  But  in  the  East,  the  case 
was  far  different.  The  defeat  of  the  rebel  forces  at  Gettys 
burg  had  been  so  crushing  that,  had  the  Union  armies 
followed  up  their  advantages,  the  war  might  have  been 
brought  to  a  more  speedy  termination.  Instead  of  this,  Lee 
was  permitted,  to  the  great  mortification  and  grief  of  the 
President,  to  recover  from  his  defeat,  to  re-cross  the  Poto 
mac,  and  to  occupy  his  former  lines.  But  the  time  was  near 
when  the  conduct  of  military  operations  was  to  be  entrusted 
to  the  able  hands  of  the  hero  of  Vicksburg,  and  when 
reverses  would  no  longer  alternate  with  the  successes  of  the 
Northern  armies. 

Early  after  the  opening  of  the  Thirty-eighth  Congress, 
Washburne,  of  Illinois,  the  ever  faithful  friend  of  Grant,  and 
24  369 


370  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

to  whom  this  great  soldier  was  more  indebted  for  opportun 
ities  to  serve  his  country  than  to  any  other  man,  brought  for 
ward  a  bill  creating  the  office  of  Lieutenant  General.  It  was 
the  wish  of  the  friends  of  that  law  that  the  great  soldier 
who  had  achieved  such  signal  success  in  the  valley  of  the 
Mississippi  should  take  the  high  position  of  commander, 
under  the  President,  of  all  the  armies  of  the  United  States. 
On  the  22d  of  February,  1864,  the  President  approved  the 
act,  and  sent  the  name  of  Grant  to  the  Senate  as  Lieutenant 
General.  On  the  26.  of  March  the  nomination  was  confirmed, 
and  the  President  immediately  requested  the  General's 
presence  at  Washington.  Up  to  this  time  Grant  had  not, 
during  the  war,  visited  the  capital.  He  was  personally 
unknown  to  the  President,  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  most 
of  the  members  of  Congress.  This  unsolicited  appointment 
found  him  at  his  post  of  duty,  and,  with  a  modesty  and  gen 
erosity  towards  his  most  trusted  lieutenant,  General  Sher 
man,  as  rare  as  it  was  honorable,  he  said  :  "  I  think  Sherman 
better  entitled  to  the  position  than  I  am."  He  arrived  at  the 
capital  on  the  8th  of  March,  and  in  the  evening  attended  a 
levee  at  the  White  House.  He  entered  the  reception  room 
unannounced,  and  almost  a  stranger.  He  was  instantly  rec 
ognized  by  the  President,  and  the  Western  soldier  was  never 
more  cordially  welcomed.  As  soon  as  it  was  known  that  he 
was  present,  the  pressure  of  the  crowd  to  see  the  hero  of 
Vicksburg  was  so  great,  that  he  was  forced  to  shelter  himself 
behind  a  sofa.  So  irrepressible  was  the  desire  to  see  him, 
that  Secretary  Seward  finally  induced  him  to  mount  a  sofa, 
that  this  curiosity  might  be  gratified.  When  parting  from 
the  President,  he  said,  "  This  has  been  rather  the  warmest 
campaign  I  have  witnessed  during  the  war." 

On  the  next  day,  at  the  Executive  Mansion,  the  Presi 
dent  in  person,  and  in  the  presence  of  a  few  friends,  pre 
sented  him  his  commission,  saying  : 

"  General  Grant :  The  nation's  appreciation  of  what 
you  have  done,  and  its  reliance  upon  you  for  what  remains 
to  be  done  in  the  existing  great  struggle,  are  now  presented 


GRANT  AND  SHERMAN.  371 

with  this  commission,  constituting  you  Lieutenant  General  in 
the  army  of  the  United  States.  With  this  high  honor 
devolves  upon  you  also  a  corresponding  responsibility.  As 
the  country  herein  trusts  you,  so,  under  God,  it  will  sustain 
you.  I  scarcely  need  to  add,  that  with  what  I  here  speak 
for  the  nation,  goes  my  own  hearty  personal  concurrence." 
To  this  General  Grant  made  the  following  reply  : 

"  MR.  PRESIDENT  :  I  accept  the  commission  with  grati 
tude  for  the  high  honor  conferred.  With  the  aid  of  the 
noble  armies  that  have  fought  on  so  many  fields  for  our 
common  country,  it  will  be  my  earnest  endeavor  not  to  dis 
appoint  your  expectations.  I  feel  the  full  weight  of  the 
responsibilities  now  devolving  on  me,  and  I  know  that  if 
they  are  met,  it  will  be  due  to  those  armies,  and  above  all  to 
the  favor  of  that  Providence  which  leads  both  nations  and 
men." 

After  visiting  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  he  returned  to 
Washington,  and  after  an  interview  with  the  President  and 
Secretary  of  War  in  regard  to  his  plans,  prepared  to  leave 
for  the  West.  Mrs.  Lincoln,  sharing  in  the  universal  grati 
tude  and  admiration  felt  for  him,  and  desirous  of  showing 
him  some  attention,  invited  him  to  meet  a  brilliant  party  at 
dinner  that  evening.  He  received  the  invitation  at  the  close 
of  this  important  interview  with  the  President.  The  General 
said  :  "  Mrs.  Lincoln  must  excuse  me.  I  must  be  in  Ten- 
-nessee  at  a  given  time."  "  But  we  can't  excuse  you,"  said 
the  President.  "  Mrs.  Lincoln's  dinner  without  you,  would 
be  Hamlet  with  Hamlet  left  out."  "  I  appreciate  the  honor 
Mrs.  Lincoln  would  do  me,"  said  the  General,  "but  time  is 
very  important  now — and  really — Mr.  Lincoln,  I  have  had 
enough  of  this  show  business."  This  was  a  remark  Mr. 
Lincoln  could  well  appreciate  and  with  which  he  could  fully 
sympathize.  General  Grant  went  to  the  West  without  wait 
ing  for  the  dinner. 

General  Sherman,  on  the  recommendation  of  General 
Grant,  was  assigned  to  the  command  of  the  military  division 
of  Mississippi.  General  Grant,  on  the  iyth  of  March, 


372  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

assumed  command  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  and 
announced  that  his  headquarters  would  be  in  the  field,  and 
until  further  orders,  with  the  army  of  the  Potomac.  From 
this  time  there  was  unity  of  purpose — each  army  cooperating 
and  acting  under  one  far-seeing  executive  head.  From  this 
time  on,  there  was  energy  in  attack,  rapidity  in  pursuit,  and 
everywhere  a  fit  man  in  the  fittest  place  for  him.  Grant  had 
the  very  great  advantage  of  having  subordinates  who  enjoyed, 
his  most  perfect  confidence,  and  who  reposed  the  most  per 
fect  faith  in  him.  Henceforth  rivalries  and  jealousies  were, 
to  a  great  extent,  banished  from  the  armies  of  the  republic. 
Nothing  had  given  Mr.  Lincoln  more  anxiety  than  the  rival 
ries  and  quarrels  among  his  generals.  From  the  time  that 
Grant  assumed  command  as  Lieutenant  General,  this  annoy 
ance  to  a  great  extent  ceased.  Sherman  was  justly  regarded 
as  Grant's  right  arm.  Grant  and  Sherman,  at  the  head  of 
the  armies  of  the  East  and  the  West,  had  perfect  confidence 
in  each  other  and  in  the  President,  and  he  in  them.  A 
great  load  of  responsibility  was  lifted  from  his  shoulders. 

On  the  3oth  of  April,  the  President  wrote  a  letter  to 
Grant,  in  which  he  says: 

"You  are  vigilant  and  self-reliant,  and  pleased  with  this,  I  wish 
not  to  obtrude  any  restraints  or  constraints  upon  you.  *  *  * 
If  there  be  anything  wanting  in  my  power  to  give,  do  not  fail  to  let  me 
know.  And  now,  with  a  brave  army  and  a  just  cause,  may  God  sustain 
you."  1 

With  these  words  Lincoln  sent  Grant  to  the  field.  Gen 
eral  Grant's  plan  is  clearly  and  simply  stated  by  him.  He 
said  : 

"  The  armies  in  the  East  and  West  acted  independently  and  with 
out  concert,  like  a  balky  team,  no  two  ever  pulling  together;  enabling 
the  enemy  to  use  to  a  great  advantage  his  interior  lines  of  communica 
tion  for  transporting  troops  from  East  to  West,  re-enforcing  the  army 
most  vigorously  pressed,  and  to  furlough  large  numbers,  during  seasons 
of  inactivity  on  our  part,  to  go  to  their  homes  and  do  the  work  of  pro 
ducing  for  the  support  of  their  armies.  It  was  a  question  whether  our 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  425. 


GRANT  AND  SHERMAN.  373 

numerical  strength  and  resources  were  not  more  than  balanced  by  these 
disadvantages  and  the  enemy's  superior  position." 

"  From  the  first  I  was  firm  in  the  conviction  that  no  peace  could  be 
had  that  would  be  stable  and  conducive  to  the  happiness  of  the  people, 
both  North  and  South,  until  the  military  power  of  the  rebellion  was 
entirely  broken,  I  therefore  determined;  first,  to  use  the  greatest  num 
ber  of  troops  practicable  against  the  armed  force  of  the  enemy;  prevent 
ing  him  from  using  the  same  force  at  different  seasons  against  first  one  and 
then  another  of  our  armies,  and  the  possibility  of  repose  for  refitting  and 
producing  necessary  supplies  for  carrying  on  resistance.  Second,  to  ham 
mer  continuously  against  the  armed  force  of  the  enemy  and  his  resources, 
until  by  mere  attrition,  if  in  no  other  way,  there  should  be  nothing  left  to 
him  but  an  equal  submission  with  the  loyal  section  of  our  common  coun 
try  to  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  land." 

The  campaign  in  Virginia  opened  on  the  4th  of  May. 
With  the  army  of  the  Potomac  under  Meade,  re-enforced  by 
the  Ninth  Corps,  under  Burnside,  Grant  started  by  the  over 
land  route  for  Richmond.  When  he  pitched  his  tent  on  the 
banks  of  the  Rapidan,  he  found  the  two  hostile  armies 
grimly  and  proudly  confronting  each  other.  Each  army  was 
in  high  spirits.  Each  could  look  with  pride  upon  a  long 
list  of  victories  inscribed  on  its  battle  flags.  Every  one  real 
ized  that  the  rebel  army  of  Northern  Virginia  carried  upon 
its  standard  the  fate  of  the  Confederacy,  and  now  there 
came  from  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  the  brilliant  and 
hitherto  invincible  hero  of  the  West,  to  test  his  genius  and 
his  fortunes  against  the  great  leader  of  the  rebellion.  It  was 
believed  the  crisis  was  at  hand.  But  while  the  Confederates 
were  nearly  exhausted  in  men  and  money  and  credit,  the 
military  resources  of  the  Union  did  not  seem  to  be  seriously 
lessened.  Men  swarmed  in  Northern  towns,  cities,  and  states; 
and  labor,  and  every  branch  of  industry  was  stimulated  to 
the  utmost  activity  by  the  war.  Meade,  as  has  been  stated, 
had  under  Grant  the  immediate  command  of  the  army  of 
the  Potomac,  which  was  divided  into  three  corps,  under 
Hancock,  commanding  the  Second  ;  Warren,  the  Fifth,  and 
Sedgwick,  the  Sixth.  Hancock,  perhaps  the  most  capable  and 
brilliant  of  all  McClellan's  subordinates,  was  the  model  of  a 
hero.  He  had  that  fine  martial  bearing,  that  personal  gallantry 


374  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  magnetism  which  made  him  the  idol  of  his  soldiers.  War 
ren  was  a  rapid,  clear  thinker,  and  ready  alike  on  the  field 
and  in  council.  Sedgwick  was  an  able,  experienced,  stead 
fast  soldier,  perfectly  certain  to  do  his  whole  duty  wherever 
placed.  Under  them  was  a  long  list  of  brave  and  intelli 
gent  officers,  whose  names  will  live  in  history. 

At  midnight,  on  the  3d  of  May,  the  Union  troops  began 
to  move,  and  on  the  4th  the  whole  army  was  across  the  Rap- 
idan.  On  the  5th  and  6th  were  fought  the  bloody  battles  of 
the  Wilderness.  On  the  7th,  Grant  began  to  move  by  the 
flank  towards  Spottsylvania  Court  House.  Lee,  being  on  the 
inner  and  shorter  line,  reached  there  first.  On  the  pth,  loth 
and  nth,  there  was  continual  maneuvering  and  fighting. 
On  the  nth  Grant  sent  to  Washington  a  dispatch,  saying  : 
"Our  losses  have  been  heavy,  as  well  as  those  of  the 
enemy,  and  I  propose  to  fight  it  out  on  this  line  if  it  takes 
all  summer." 

The  armies  fought  again  on  the  i2th,  and  again  at  North 
Anna,  and  at  Cold  Harbor.  During  these  weeks  of  May  and 
early  June,  there  was  constant  fighting  and  marching,  and 
great  loss  of  life,  and  during  all  these  furious  and  persistent 
struggles,  the  losses  were  greater  to  the  Union  than  to  the 
rebel  forces.  Lee  was  on  the  inner  and  shorter  line,  knew 
the  ground  perfectly,  and  could  choose  the  time  and  place 
of  attack.  Grant  had  fought  his  way  to  the  Chickahominy, 
but  he  had  not  taken  Richmond,  nor  destroyed  the  brave 
army  of  Northern  Virginia. 

Those  of  the  wounded  of  the  Union  army  who  could  be 
moved  were  brought  on  steamboats  to  Washington,  where  a 
large  number  of  great  field  hospitals  covered  the  hills  over 
looking  the  capital.  These  wounded  came  in  appalling 
numbers.  The  line  of  ambulances,  moving  from  the  steam 
ers  to  the  hospitals,  was  often  one  and  two  miles  long,  and 
unbroken  from  wharf  to  hospital.  The  President,  whose 
sympathy  for  human  suffering  was  most  tender,  could  often 
be  seen  with  Mrs.  Lincoln  in  his  carriage  driving  slowly 
along  this  line  of  sufferers,  speaking  kind  and  cheering 


GRANT  AND  SHERMAN.  375 

words,  and  personally  seeing  that  every  want  and  need  was 
supplied. 

During  these  long  days  of  terrible  slaughter  the  face  of 
the  President  was  grave  and  anxious,  and  he  looked  like  one 
who  had  lost  the  dearest  member  of  his  own  family.  I 
recall  one  evening  late  in  May,  when  I  met  the  President  in 
his  carriage  driving  slowly  towards  the  Soldiers'  Home. 
He  had  just  parted  from  one  of  those  long  lines  of  ambu 
lances.  The  sun  was  just  sinking  behind  the  desolate  and 
deserted  hills  of  Virginia;  the  flags  from  the  forts,  hospitals, 
and  camps  drooped  sadly.  Arlington,  with  its  white  colon 
nade,  looked  like  what  it  was — a  hospital.  Far  down  the 
Potomac,  towards  Mount  Vernon,  the  haze  of  evening  was 
gathering  over  the  landscape,  and  when  I  met  the  President 
his  attitude  and  expression  spoke  the  deepest  sadness.  He 
paused  as  we  met,  and  pointing  his  hand  towards  the  line  of 
wounded  men,  he  said:  "  Look  yonder  at  those  poor  fel 
lows.  I  cannot  bear  it.  This  suffering,  this  loss  of  life  is 
dreadful."  Recalling  a  letter  he  had  written  years  before  to 
a  suffering  friend  whose  grief  he  had  sought  to  console,  I 
reminded  him  of  the  incident,  and  asked  him:  "  Do  you 
remember  writing  to  your  sorrowing  friend  these  words: 
*  And  this  too  shall  pass  away.  Never  fear.  Victory  will 
come.''  "Yes,"  replied  he,  "victory  will  come,  but  it 
comes  slowly." 

General  Butler  commanded  a  force  on  the  James  River. 
On  the  5th  of  May  he  took  possession  of  City  Point  and 
Bermuda  Hundred.  On  the  i6th,  he  was  attacked,  and 
forced  back  between  the  James  and  the  Appomattox.  Here, 
the  enemy  erecting  fortifications  in  his  front,  he  was,  as 
General  Grant  said,  "bottled  up." 

Grant  now  resolved  to  move  his  army  to  the  south  of  the 
James.  Meanwhile,  General  Hunter  had  marched  up  the 
valley  of  the  Shenandoah,  routed  the  enemy  at  Piedmont, 
and  from  thence  marched  on  Lynchburg,  which  he  reached 
on  the  1 6th  of  June.  Lee  had  sent  a  large  force  from  Rich 
mond  to  meet  Hunter.  Breckenridge  occupied  the  defences 


376  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  Lynchburg,  and  was  joined  by  Early,  and  they  compelled 
Hunter  to  retreat  by  way  of  the  Kanawha.  General  Early 
then,  with  twelve  thousand  veterans,  marched  down  the 
valley  towards  Maryland.  General  Lew  Wallace  gathered  a 
small  force  and  placed  himself  at  Monocacy  in  Early's  front, 
to  protect  Baltimore  and  Washington.  Wallace  could  only 
delay  the  advance  of  Early,  but  Grant  had  despatched  the 
Sixth  Corps  under  Wright,  and  the  Nineteenth  from  Fort 
ress  Monroe,  and  they  arrived  in  time  to  prevent  an  attack 
upon  the  capital.  But  so  near  were  the  enemy  that  the 
country  home  of  Montgomery  Blair,  the  Postmaster  General, 
was  plundered  and  burned,  and  "  Silver  Spring,"  the  resi 
dence  of  Francis  P.  Blair,  was  for  a  short  time  occupied  by 
the  rebel  General  Breckenridge.  These  residences  were 
only  about  seven  miles  from  the  White  House.  Lincoln, 
from  Fort  Stevens,  witnessed  the  repulse  of  Early's  troops, 
and  this  was  the  last  attempt  of  the  rebels  to  capture  the 
capital.  They  retired  into  their  old  retreat,  and  there 
remained  a  menace  to  Washington. 

Grant  now  determined  to  drive  Early  out  of  this  rich  and 
productive  valley,  and  leave  it  in  a  condition  to  be  no  longer 
useful  in  furnishing  supplies  to  the  enemy.  There  had 
been  many  Union  commanders  in  the  Shenandoah,  but  none 
who  had  achieved  a  complete  success.  Grant  now  selected 
Sheridan  to  execute  the  decisive  campaign  he  had  planned. 
On  the  1 9th  of  September,  Sheridan  attacked  Early  at 
Opequan,  and  drove  him  from  the  field  with  a  loss  of  four 
thousand  men.  From  this  day  Maryland  was  never  more  in 
danger  of  invasion.  Sheridan  pursued  Early  to  the  passes 
of  the  Blue  Ridge  Mountains,  destroying  the  railroads,  and 
on  his  return  destroyed  everything  in  the  way  of  provisions 
and  forage,  drove  off  the  stock,  and  left  the  rich  and  beauti 
ful  valley  a  desolate  waste.  Rendering,  in  his  own  words, 
"  the  whole  country  from  the  Blue  Ridge  "  untenable  for  a 
rebel  army. 

On  the  morning  of  the  ipth  of  October,  Early  crossed 
the  mountains,  and,  in  the  absence  of  Sheridan,  surprised 


GRANT  AND  SHERMAN.  377 

and  drove  from  the  field  the  left  of  the  Union  army. 
Retreating  in  confusion,  and  with  heavy  loss,  the  Union 
troops  were  rallied  near  Middletown,  and  made  a  stand.  At 
this  juncture,  Sheridan,  who  had  been  at  Winchester,  and 
there  heard  the  heavy  guns,  came  dashing  forward  at  the 
full  speed  of  his  horse.  Arriving  on  the  field,  his  magnetic 
presence,  heroic  bearing,  and  indomitable  will,  inspired  his 
troops  with  fresh  courage  and  enthusiasm.  Passing  rapidly 
along  his  lines,  he  arranged  them  in  time  to  repel  a  heavy 
attack.  Immediately  following  the  repulse,  he  attacked 
with  great  impetuosity  in  turn,  recapturing  the  guns  and 
prisoners  that  Early  had  taken.  The  rebel  army  was 
broken,  routed,  and  destroyed,  the  remnants  of  it  only 
escaping  during  the  night.  Thus  ended  the  war  in  the  She- 
nandoah,  and  Sheridan's  victory  at  Cedar  Creek  was  the  last 
of  the  many  battles  fought  in  the  valley. 

Sheridan's  ride  to  the  battle-field,  and  the  battle  itself, 
have  been  made  the  theme  of  one  of  the  most  spirited  poems 
of  the  war.1  No  name  on  the  records  of  either  army  of 
those  who  fought  in  this  famed  valley  can  compare  with 
Sheridan's,  unless  it  be  that  of  Stonewall  Jackson. 

We  will  leave  Grant  preparing  to  invest  Petersburg, 
and  follow  the  victorious  standards  of  Sherman  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Alleghanies.  He  opened  the  campaign  on  the 
6th  of  May,  1864,  and  on  the  2d  of  September  entered 
•Atlanta.  In  the  graphic  language  of  his  report  dated  Sep 
tember  8th,  he  says  :  "  On  the  first  of  May  our  armies  were 
lying  in  garrison  seemingly  quiet,  from  Knoxville  to  Hunts- 
ville,  and  our  enemy  lay  behind  his  Rocky-Faced  barrier  at 
Dalton,  proud,  defiant,  and  exultant." 

The  rebels  had  recovered  from  their  defeat  at  Mission 
Ridge,  their  ranks  were  again  filled  up,  and  a  new  com 
mander,  General  Johnston,  second  to  none  for  skill  and 
sagacity,  was  now  at  the  head  of  their  army.  "  All  at  once," 
says  Sherman,  "  our  armies  assumed  life  and  action,  and 
appeared  before  Dalton.  Threatening  Rocky  Face,  we 

1.  Sheridan's  Ride,  by  Thomas  Buchanan  Head. 


378  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

threw  ourselves  upon  Resaca,  and  the  rebel  army  escaped  by 
the  rapidity  of  his  retreat."  *  *  *  *  "  He  took  post  at 
Allatoona,  but  we  gave  him  no  rest,  and  by  our  circuit 
towards  Dallas  and  subsequent  movement,  gained  the  Alla 
toona  Pass.  Then  followed  the  eventful  battles  about  Kene- 
saw,  and  the  escape  of  the  enemy  across  the  Chattahooche  ; 
the  crossing  of  the  Chattahooche,  and  the  breaking  of  the 
Augusta  Road  was  most  handsomely  executed.  At  this  stage 
of  our  game,  our  enemies  became  dissatisfied  with  their  old 
and  skillful  commander,  and  selected  one  (Hood)  more  rash 
and  bold.  New  tactics  were  adopted.  Hood  boldly,  on  the 
2oth  of  July,  fell  on  our  right  at  Peach  Tree  Creek,  and  lost. 
On  the  22d,  he  struck  our  extreme  left,  and  was  severely 
punished,  and  finally,  on  the  28th,  he  repeated  the  attempt 
on  our  right,  and  this  time  must  have  become  satisfied,  for 
since  that  time  he  has  remained  on  the  defensive."  Sher 
man  then  drew  his  lines  about  Atlanta,  and,  on  the  2d  of 
September,  obtained  possession  of  that  important  railroad 
and  military  position.  In  this  short,  brilliant,  and  decisive 
campaign,  in  an  attack  by  Hood  on  the  22d  of  July,  the 
brave  and  accomplished  McPherson  was  killed.  The  Presi 
dent,  who  had  watched  these  successful  movements  with  the 
greatest  interest,  issued  a  general  order  of  thanks  to  Sher 
man  and  his  gallant  officers  and  soldiers,  in  which  he  justly 
says  :  "  This  campaign  will  be  ever  famous  in  the  annals  of 
war." 

Far  from  his  base  of  supplies,  General  Sherman  deemed 
it  a  military  necessity  to  remove  the  inhabitants  of  Atlanta  sa 
that  it  should  be  occupied  exclusively  for  military  purposes. 
General  Hood  and  the  mayor  of  Atlanta  protested  against 
this  order  for  removal.  In  reply,  General  Sherman  said: 

"  The  use  of  Atlanta  for  warlike  purposes  is  inconsistent  with  its 
character  as  a  home  for  families.  There  will  be  no  manufactures,  com 
merce,  or  agriculture  here  for  the  maintenance  of  families,  and  sooner  or 
later,  want  will  compel  the  inhabitants  to  go.  Why  not  go  now,  when 
all  the  arrangements  are  completed  for  the  transfer,  instead  of  waiting 
till  the  plunging  shot  of  contending  armies  will  renew  the  scenes  of  the 
past  month.  *  *  You  cannot  qualify  war  in  harsher 


GRANT  AND  SHERMAN.  379 

terms  than  I  will.  War  is  cruelty,  and  you  cannot  refine  it;  and  those 
who  brought  war  on  our  country,  deserve  all  the  curses  and  maledictions 
a  people  can  pour  out.  I  know  I  had  no  hand  in  making  this  war,  and 
I  know  I  will  make  more  sacrifices  to-day  than  any  of  you  to  secure 
peace.  But  you  cannot  have  peace  and  a  division  of  our  country.  If 
the  United  States  submits  to  a  division  now,  it  will  not  stop,  but  will  go 
on  till  we  reap  the  fate  of  Mexico,  which  is  eternal  war.  The  United 
States  does  and  must  assert  its  authority  wherever  it  has  power;  if  it 
relaxes  one  bit  to  pressure,  it  is  gone,  and  I  know  that  such  is  not  the 
national  feeling.  This  feeling  assumes  various  shapes,  but  always 
comes  back  to  that  of  the  Union;  once  admit  the  Union;  once  more 
acknowledge  the  authority  of  the  national  government,  and  instead  of 
devoting  your  houses,  and  streets,  and  roads  to  the  dread  uses  of  war,  I 
and  this  army  become  at  once  your  protectors  and  supporters,  shielding 
you  from  danger,  let  it  come  from  whatever  quarter  it  may." 

This  reply  of  Sherman  is  written  with  great  vigor,  and 
shows  that  he  could  use  the  pen  with  as  much  ability  as  the 
sword.  Meanwhile,  Hood,  with  the  hope  of  compelling 
Sherman  to  retire  to  the  North,  moved  to  the  right  of  Atlan 
ta,  towards  Tennessee.  But  Sherman  proposed  to  Grant  to 
destroy  Atlanta  and  the  railroads  leading  to  it,  and  boldly 
strike  through  the  enemy's  country  to  the  sea.  Grant  evi 
dently  at  first  thought  the  enterprise  very  hazardous,  if  not 
rash,  and  in  reply,  on  the  nth  of  October,  he  telegraphed 
to  Sherman:  "  Hood  will  probably  strike  for  Nashville.  *  * 
If  there  is  any  way  of  getting  at  Hood's  army  I  would  prefer 
that,  but  I  must  trust  to  your  judgment.  #  *  #  j  am 
afraid  Thomas,  with  such  lines  of  road  as  he  has  to  protect, 
could  not  prevent  Hood  from  going  North."  On  the  same 
day,  Sherman  telegraphed  to  Grant  from  Kingston,  Georgia: 
"  We  cannot  remain  here  on  the  defensive.  *  *  *  I 
would  prefer  making  a  wreck  of  the  roads  and  the  country 
from  Chattanooga  to  Atlanta,  including  the  latter  city,  send 
ing  back  my  wounded,  and  with  my  effective  army  move 
through  Georgia,  smashing  things  to  the  sea."  To  this  Grant 
on  the  same  day  replied:  "If  you  are  satisfied  the  trip  to 
the  sea  can  be  made,  holding  the  line  of  the  Tennessee 
River  firmly,  you  may  make  it."  And  so  the  bold  and 
adventurous  Sherman  cut  loose  from  his  communications  in 


380  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  rear,  cut  the  wires  of  the  telegraph  and  started  for  the 
sea,  which  he  must  reach  or  perish. 

But  before  we  follow  the  path  of  this  enterprising  soldier, 
let  us  see  what  were  the  fortunes  of  Hood.  Thomas  was 
being  strengthened.  Hood,  following  Schofield,  who  was 
marching  towards  Thomas,  attacked  him  at  Franklin,  but 
was  repulsed  with  serious  loss.  Thomas  and  Schofield 
formed  a  line  of  battle  in  front  of  Nashville,  and,  on  the 
1 5th  of  January,  Thomas  attacked  Hood,  and  after  a  fierce 
and  bloody  conflict,  continuing  through  two  days,  the  Con 
federates  broke  and  fled  in  confusion,  the  Union  army  cap 
turing  several  thousand  prisoners,  and  a  vast  amount  of 
small  arms  and  artillery.  The  soldiers  of  Hood  were  scat 
tered  or  captured,  and  never  again  appeared  in  the  field  as 
an  army  organization.  Some  fragments  of  his  army  escaped, 
and  under  Johnston,  surrendered  to  Sherman  in  the  spring 
of  1865,  at  the  final  surrender  of  Johnston. 

Where  now  was  Sherman  ?  Jefferson  Davis  prophesied 
that  Sherman's  army,  then  in  the  heart  of  the  Confederacy, 
would  meet  the  fate  of  the  army  of  Napoleon  when  it 
invaded  Russia.  "  Our  cavalry  and  our  people,"  said  the 
rebel  leader,  "will  harass  and  destroy  this  army,  as  did  the 
Cossacks  that  of  the  French,  and  the  Yankee  General,  like 
Napoleon,  will  escape  with  only  a  body  guard." 

But  this  "  Yankee  General,"  at  whom  Davis  so  arrogantly 
sneered,  marched  at  pleasure  through  his  Confederacy,  and 
soon  Davis  himself,  as  the  result,  became  first  a  fugitive,  and 
then  a  captive,  and  his  empire  based  on  slavery  crumbled 
into  ruins. 

Sherman  marched  eastward  towards  Macon,  destroying 
railroads  and  everything  which  could  be  of  service  to  the 
Confederacy.  He  reached  Milledgeville,  the  capital  of 
Georgia,  in  November,  without  any  serious  opposition.  By 
the  1 2th  of  December  he  had  reached  and  invested  Savannah. 
Lincoln  had  sent  Admiral  Dahlgren  with  a  fleet,  to  find  and 
cooperate  with  Sherman.  To  open  communication  with 
the  fleet  it  was  necessary  to  capture  Fort  McAllister,  which 


GRANT  AND  SHERMAN.  381 

commanded  the  approaches  from  the  sea  on  the  south  side 
of  the  city.  On  the  i3th  of  December,  General  Hazen 
assaulted  and  captured  the  Fort,  a  boat  was  sent  to  the  fleet, 
General  Sherman  went  on  board,  and  sent  a  despatch  to 
Washington  announcing  his  arrival  and  his  complete  suc 
cess.  On  the  2oth,  Hardee,  in  command  of  Savannah, 
abandoned  the  city,  Sherman  took  possession,  and  sent  to 
the  President  a  despatch  saying:  "I  present  to  you  as  a 
Christmas  gift  the  City  of  Savannah,  with  one  hundred  and 
fifty  guns,  plenty  of  ammunition,  and  about  twenty-five 
thousand  bales  of  cotton." 

Thus  ended  this  grand  march  to  the  sea,  a  part  of  the 
romance  of  history.  With  the  overwhelming  force  of  the 
avalanche  Sherman  descended  from  the  North,  crushing 
everything  in  his  path  from  the  mountains  to  the  sea.  And 
now  it  only  remained  for  this  Northwestern  army  to  turn 
again  to  the  North,  and,  cooperating  with  the  veterans  of 
Grant,  to  crush  the  remaining  fragments  of  the  rebellion. 

Nothing  occurred  during  the  war  which  more  incensed 
the  American  people  than  the  ravages  upon  their  commerce 
by  English  built  cruisers  sailing  under  the  rebel  flag.  Avoid 
ing  armed  antagonists,  they  long  roamed  the  sea  with 
impunity,  robbing  and  destroying  American  merchantmen, 
and  finding  refuge  and  protection,  and  often  supplies,  in 
neutral  ports,  especially  those  of  Great  Britain.  Among  the 
most  destructive  of  these  cruisers  were  the  Alabama,  the 
Florida,  and  the  Georgia.  Early  in  June,  1864,  the  Ala 
bama,  after  a  successful  cruise,  put  in  to  Cherbourg,  France. 
The  Kearsarge,  Captain  John  A.  Winslow,  immediately 
sailed  for  that  port,  and  waited  for  the  Alabama  to  put  to 
sea.  The  Alabama,  having  made  the  most  careful  prepara 
tion  for  the  conflict,  on  the  i9th  of  June  steamed  out  of  the 
harbor  to  meet  her  foe.  As  she  came  out  she  opened  fire  at 
long  range.  The  Kearsarge  made  no  reply,  buc  steamed 
directly  for  her  antagonist.  Arriving  at  close  quarters,  she 
opened  a  tremendous  fire,  and  in  a  short  time  the  Alabama 
surrendered.  Captain  Semmes,  her  commander,  and  her 


382  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

other  officers  abandoned  their  ship,  and  were  picked  up  and 
carried  to  England  by  the  English  yacht  Deerhound.  The 
Alabama  in  a  few  moments  went  down,  even  before  all  the 
wounded  could  be  saved.  Of  this  gallant  fight,  Admiral 
Farragut,  in  a  letter  to  his  son,  says:  "  It  was  fought  like  a 
tournament  in  full  view  of  thousands  of  French  and  Eng 
lish,  with  full  confidence  on  the  part  of  all  but  the  Union 
people  that  we  would  be  whipped.  *  *  *  I  would 
sooner  have  fought  that  fight  than  any  ever  fought  on  the 
ocean."  l  The  Florida  and  the  Georgia  were  both  captured 
during  the  year.  Neither  the  sinking  of  the  Alabama,  nor 
the  payment  by  the  English  government  to  the  Americans  of 
the  Alabama  claims,  have  entirely  removed  from  the  people 
of  this  republic  their  indignation  towards  the  English  for 
their  unfriendly  conduct  in  permitting,  while  professing 
friendship  to  our  government,  the  Alabama  and  other  rebel 
cruisers  to  be  fitted  out  in  their  ports. 

In  the  same  summer  of  1864,  Admiral  Farragut  was  in 
command  of  the  national  squadron  off  Mobile.  The  city 
was  supposed  to  be  able  to  defy  any  attack.  It  was  defended 
by  Forts  Gaines,  Morgan,  and  Powell,  by  water  batteries  and 
earth-works,  by  torpedoes,  and  by  the  iron-clad  ram  Tennes 
see,  which  it  was  supposed  could  destroy  any  fleet  which 
should  attempt  its  capture.  But  with  Farragut  there  was 
nothing  impossible.  He  made  his  preparations  for  attack  on 
the  5th  of  August.  "  Strip  your  vessels  and  prepare  for  the 
conflict,"  said  he.  As  he  went  into  close  action,  the  grand 
old  Admiral  stood  in  the  port-rigging  of  the  flag-ship,  a  few 
ratlins  up,  standing  on,  and  steadying  himself  by  the  ropes, 
and,  as  the  smoke  increased,' he  ascended  the  rigging  step  by 
step,  until  he  found  himself  above  the  futtock-bands,  and 
holding  on  to  the  shrouds*  Captain  Drayton,  seeing  the  per 
ilous  position  of  the  Admiral,  and  seeing  that  if  wounded  he 
would  fall  into  the  sea,  sent  a  sailor  with  a  line  to  secure 
him.  The  sailor  took  a  lead  line,  and  fastening  it  around 
the  Admiral,  made  it  fast  to  the  shrouds.  "For,"  said  the 

1 .  See  Life  of  Farragut,  p.  403. 


GRANT  AND  SHERMAN.  383 

sailor,  "  I  feared  he  would  fall  overboard  if  anything  should 
carry  away,  or  he  should  be  struck."  And  thus  lashed  to 
the  shrouds,  in  a  position  above  the  smoke,  and  where  he 
could  see  the  fight,  the  Admiral  fought  the  most  brilliant 
naval  battle  of  the  war.  Captain  Craven,  of  the  Tecumseh, 
eager  to  engage  the  Tennessee,  pressed  rapidly  on,  struck  a 
torpedo,  and  went  down  with  nearly  all  on  board.  Farra- 
gut,  from  his  lofty  position,  saw  his  brave  comrades  go  down 
by  his  side,  and  at  the  same  moment  the  Brooklyn,  leading 
the  fleet,  and  discovering  the  line  of  torpedoes  across  the 
channel,  began  to  back  water. 

"  What's  the  trouble  ?  "  was  shouted  through  a  trumpet 
to  the  Brooklyn. 

"  Torpedoes,"  was  shouted  back  in  reply. 

"Damn  the  torpedoes  !  "  said  Farragut. 

"  Go  ahead,  full  speed,"  he  shouted  to  his  own  captain. 
And  away  went  the  flag-ship,  the  Hartford,  passing  the 
Brooklyn,  and  leading  the  fleet  to  victory,  l  at  a  moment 
when  hesitation  would  have  been  fatal.  This  brilliant  vic 
tory  by  Farragut  was  followed  by  the  surrender  of  Mobile, 
and  the  forts,  on  being  invested  by  General  Granger,  soon 
also  surrendered. 

The  President  issued  a  proclamation  of  thanksgiving  and 
gratitude  to  God.  He  was  now  buoyant  with  hope,  and 
began  to  expect  an  early  termination  of  the  war. 

1.  Life  of  Farragut,  p.  417. 


CHAPTER   XXIII. 

THE   SECOND   TERM. 

LINCOLN  RENOMINATED  AND    RE-ELECTED. —  His  ADMINISTRATION. 

—  PEACE  CONFERENCE. —  GREELEY  AND  THE  REBEL  EMISSARIES. 

—  BLAIR'S    VISIT    TO    RICHMOND. —  HAMPTON    ROADS  CONFER 
ENCE. —  SECOND  INAUGURATION. 

IN  the  meanwhile,  time  and  tide,  and  Presidential  elec 
tions,  wait  for  no  man.  Lincoln's  first  term  was  approach 
ing  its  end,  and  the  people  began  to  prepare  for  the  election. 

There  was  not  only  an  active,  hostile  party  organization 
against  the  President,  eager  to  obtain  power,  ready  to  seize 
upon  and  magnify  the  faults  and  errors  of  the  administration, 
but  there  were  also  many  ambitious  men  in  the  Union  party, 
who,  with  their  friends  and  followers,  believed  the  best  inter 
ests  of  the  republic  required  a  change.  There  were  candi 
dates  for  the  Presidency  among  the  generals,  whom  the 
President  had  been  compelled  by  his  sense  of  duty  to  relieve 
of  command,  and  even  in  his  Cabinet  was  an  eager  aspi 
rant  for  the  White  House.  The  attention  of  all  the  world 
was  directed  to  this  approaching  election. 

Occurring  in  the  midst  of  this  tremendous  civil  war,  it  was 
regarded  as  the  most  fearful  ordeal  to  which  our  institutions 
could  be  subjected.  Many  candid  and  intelligent  men  did 
not  believe  we  could  pass  through  its  dangers  without 
anarchy  and  revolution.  There  were  also  elements  of  dan 
ger  in  secret  and  factious  organizations  which  bold,  ambi 
tious,  and  unscrupulous  men,  sympathizing  with  the  rebels, 
were  ready  to  use  for  dangerous  purposes.  All  thoughtful 
observers  know  that  in  time  of  war,  and  especially  civil  war, 

384 


THE  SECOND  TERM. 

the  passions,  prejudices,  and  convictions  of  men" 
strongly  excited  and  difficult  to  control.  The  people  are 
easily  led  to  throw  off  the  restraints  of  law,  and  to  adopt 
questionable  means  to  secure  their  ends.  There  was  danger,, 
grave  danger,  in  this  election. 

The  safety  and  triumph  of  law,  order,  and  the  Constitution 
were  largely  due  to  the  forbearance,  the  patriotism,  and  the 
personal  character  of  the  President.  He  was  so  modest,  so> 
calm,  so  just,  so  truthful,  so  magnaminous  to  others,  so  sin 
cerely  honest,  and  so  clearly  and  obviously  unselfish  and: 
patriotic,  that  faction  and  personal  hostility  were  calmed  and 
quieted.  With  "  malice  towards  none,  and  charity  for  all," 
he  could  not  be  provoked  to  do  any  act  of  personal  injury 
or  wrong;  and  faction  stood  disarmed  by  his  transparent- 
truth,  and  honest  desire  to  do  right.  He  would  not  be  pro 
voked  into  personal  controversy.  The  great  mass  of  the 
people  stood  firmly  by  him.  They  trusted  him  fully,  and 
while  the  politicians,  a  majority  of  both  Houses  of  Congress, 
and  the  great  leaders  of  the  press  in  the  great  cities,  were 
not  favorable  to  his  re-election,  the  people,  with  the  instinc 
tive  good  sense  which  characterized  them  during  the  warr 
were  almost  universally  in  his  favor.  The  prominent  men 
who  opposed  him  in  Congress,  and  out  of  it,  could  get  no 
following.  In  vain  Mr.  Horace  Greeley,  through  the  New 
York  Tribune,  and  over  his  name,  in  the  Independent, 
•opposed  the  renomination.  !  In  vain  an  organization  was 
gotten  up  at  Washington  in  opposition  to  him,  composed  of 
a  large  number  of  able,  eloquent,  and  influential  senators 
and  members  of  Congress,  and  in  vain  were  secret  circulars 
issued,  and  speeches  made  opposing  him. 8  The  people  would 

1.  See  Letter  of  Horace  Greeley  in  The  Independent  of  February  25th,  1864.  See 
also  New  York  Daily  Tribune,  February  13th,  1864,  and  other  issues  during  the  winter 
and  spring  of  that  year. 

2.  See  Secret  Circular  issued  by  Senator  Pomeroy  and  others.     As  an  illustration 
of  the  opinion  of  Congress,  the  following  incident  is  recalled.     A  prominent  editor 
from  the  interior  of  Pennsylvania,  a  warm  friend  of  the  President,  came  to  Washing 
ton  in  the  winter  of    1864,  and,  going  to  the  Congressional  leader,  Mr.  Thaddeus 
Stevens,  said  :  "  Introduce  me  to  some  member  of  Congress  friendly  to  Mr.  Lincoln's 
renomination."      "  Come  with  me,"  replied  Stevens.     They  came  to  the  seat  of  the 

25 


386  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

not  respond  to  their  appeals.  They  said:  "  We  know  and 
trust  Lincoln,  and  we  will  not  change  pilots  in  the  midst  of 
the  storm."  To  use  his  own  homely  but  expressive  illustra 
tion,  they  said:  "  We  will  not  swap  horses  while  fording  the 
stream." 

The  opposition  to  him  was  divided  in  its  preferences. 
Some  were  for  General  Fremont,  and  more  for  Salmon  P. 
Chase,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  He  had  been  a 
trusted  leader  in  the  anti-slavery  movement,  a  distinguished 
senator,  an  able  secretary,  but  he  had  the  fault  of  many 
great  men  ;  he  was  ambitious,  he  wished  to  be  President. 
And,  while  holding  a  position  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cabinet,  he 
not  only  permitted,  but  encouraged  his  friends  to  seek  his 
elevation  over  the  man  in  whose  political  family  he  held 
a  position  so  confidential.  He  was  not  loyal  to  his  chief. 
He  used  the  power  which  the  President  gave  him  to  place 
his  own  partisans  in  office.  They  did  not  scruple  to  use  this 
power  to  pull  Lincoln  down  and  set  Chase  up.  The  Presi 
dent  was  fully  conscious  of  this,  but  permitted  it  to  go  on, 
saying  :  "  It  will  all  come  out  right  in  the  end."  But  when 
Ohio,  Mr.  Chase's  own  state,  declared  for  Mr.  Lincoln,  he 
withdrew  from  the  canvass.  Lincoln  was  so  magnanimous 
that  a  short  time  thereafter,  when  a  vacancy  occurred  in  the 
great  office  of  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States,  he 
appointed  Mr.  Chase  to  that  high  position. 

The  people  were  satisfied  with  the  President,  and  they 
were  so  engrossed  with  the  contest  for  national  existence, 
and  the  overthrow  of  slavery,  that  they  were  impatient  of 
divisions  and  controversies  among  the  Union  leaders.  So 

member  from  the  Chicago  District  in  Illinois.  Addressing  him,  Mr.  Stevens  said  : 
"  Here  is  a  man  who  wants  to  find  a  Lincoln  member  of  Congress.  You  are  the  only 
one  I  know,  and  I  have  come  over  to  introduce  my  friend  to  you."  "Thank  you,"  said 
the  member.  "  I  know  a  good  many  such,  and  I  will  present  your  friend  to  them,  and 
I  wish  you,  Mr.  Stevens,  were  with  us." 

But  Stevens  was  quite  right  in  supposing  a  large  majority  to  be  opposed  to  the 
President.  In  January,  1865,  Mr.  Stevens  said  :  "  If  the  question  could  be  sub 
mitted  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  whom  they  would  elect  for  the  next  Presi 
dent,  a  majority  would  vote  for  General  Butler."  Cong.  Globe,  2nd  Session  38th  Con 
gress,  part  1,  p.  400. 


THE  SECOND  TERM.  38; 

much  so,  that  the  opposition  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  talented,  elo 
quent,  zealous,  and  active,  and  supported  by  many  of  the 
leading  journals  of  the  country,  produced  hardly  a  ripple 
upon  the  wave  of  public  sentiment,  which  rolled  on  in  favor 
of  his  renomination.  The  voters  at  home,  and  the  soldiers 
in  the  field,  had  learned  to  trust  him  fully  and  absolutely. 
They  knew  his  hands  were  clean,  and  that  his  heart  was 
thoroughly  honest  ;  that  he  was  bold  and  sagacious.  They 
knew  that  there  was  no  bribe  big  enough,  no  temptation  of 
wealth  or  power  sufficient  to  seduce  his  integrity.  Hence 
their  instinctive  sagacity  settled  the  presidential  question, 
and  the  politicians  and  the  editors,  after  vain  efforts  to  turn 
the  tide,  acquiesced. 

The  convention  was  called  to  meet  at  Baltimore,  on  the 
8th  of  June,  1864.  The  opposition  to  Mr.  Lincoln  made  a 
great  effort  to  have  it  postponed  until  autumn,  but  failed.1 

1.  The  following  letter  will  show  the  manner  in  which  the  President's  friends 
met  this  effort,  and  the  spirit  of  the  canvass. 

' k  To  the  Editors  of  the  Evening  Post: 

"  I  have  received  a  printed  circular  to  which  several  distinguished  names  arc 
attached,  urging  the  postponement  of  the  national  convention. 

"Believing  that  such  postponement  would  be  most  unwise  and  dangerous  to  the 
loyal  cause,!  ask  the  privilege,  through  the  columns  of  the  Evening  Post,  very  briefly 
to  give  my  reasons  for  such  belief. 

"I  concur  most  fully  with  the  gentlemen  who  signed  the  paper  referred  to,  that 
it  is  very  important  that  all  parties  friendly  to  the  government  should  be  united  in 
support  of  a  single  candidate  (for  President),  and  that  when  a  selection  shall  be  made 
it  shall  be  acquiesced  in  by  all  sections  of  the  country,  and  all  branches  of  the  loyal 
party. 

UI  am  perfectly  convinced  that  the  best  means  of  securing  a  result  so  essential  to 
success  is  an  early  convention,  and  that  nothing  would  be  more  likely  to  prevent  such 
union  than  its  postponement. 

"The  postponement  would  be  the  signal  for  the  organization  of  the  friends  of  the 
various  aspirants  for  the  Presidency,  and  for  the  most  earnest  and  zealous  canvass  of 
the  claims,  merits,  and  demerits  of  those  candidates. 

"  If  the  time  should  be  changed  to  September,  we  should  see  the  most  violent 
controversy  within  the  Union  ranks  known  in  the  history  of  politics. 

"Is  such  a  controversy  desirable,  and  shall  we  encourage  and  stimulate  it  by  post 
poning  the  convention? 

"I  think  I  am  fully  warranted  in  stating  that  up  to  this  time  there  has  been  no 
considerable  difference  of  opinion  among  the  people  on  the  Presidential  question.  It 
is  a  most  significant  fact  that,  notwithstanding  the  efforts  made  In  this  city  and  else- 
whore  in  behalf  of  prominent  and  able  men  in  military  and  civil  life;  notwithstanding 
a  thoroughly  organized,  able,  ardent,  and  zealous  opposition  to  President  Lincoln  here, 
embodying  great  abilities  and  abundant  means;  with  the  co-operation  of  some  of  the 


388 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


A  few  disappointed  members  of  the  party  met  at  Cleveland,, 
Ohio,  and  nominated  General  Fremont  for  President,  but 
this  nomination  was  so  obviously  without  popular  support 
that  Fremont  withdrew,  and  his  friends  generally  voted  for 
Lincoln.  An  attempt  was  made  to  bring  out  General  Grant 

great  leading  newspapers  of  the  Union,  and  with  the  aid  of  some  of  the  distinguished 
names  of  trusted  national  leaders  attached  to  your  petition;  yet  all  this  has  produced 
no  perceptible  effect  upon  public  opinion.  The  minds  of  the  people  are  fixed  upon  the 
great  contest  for  national  existence,  and  are  impatient  of  quarrels  and  controversies 
among  ourselves.  The  opposition  to  the  President  in  our  own  party,  talented,  elo 
quent,  zealous,  and  active  as  it  is,  has  scarcely  produced  a  ripple  on  the  wave  of  public 
sentiment  which  is  so  strongly  running  in  favor  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  re-election. 

"There  is  no  organization  among  the  friends  of  the  President,  they  are  doing 
nothing;  but  this  action  of  the  people  is  spontaneous,  unprompted,  earnest,  and  sin 
cere.  State  after  state  holds  its  convention,  appoints  its  delegates,  and  without  a 
dissenting  voice  instructs  them  to  vote  for  Mr.  Lincoln.  This  popularity  of  the  Presi 
dent,  this  unanimity  of  the  people,  is  confined  to  no  section,  but  East  as  well  as  West, 
middle  state  and  border  state,  they  all  speak  one  voice,  '  Let  us  have  Lincoln  for  our 
candidate.'  Do  I  exaggerate?  Maine  speaks  for  him  on  the  Atlantic,  and  her  voice 
is  echoed  by  California  from  the  Pacific,  New  Hampshire  and  Kansas,  Connecticut 
and  Minnesota,  Wisconsin  and  West  Virginia,  and  now  comes  the  great  state  of  Penn 
sylvania,  seconding  Maryland;  one  after  another,  all  declare  for  the  re-election  of  the 
President.  Is  it  not  wiser  to  recognize  and  accept  this  great  fact  than  to  struggle 
against  it? 

"The  truth  Is,  the  masses  of  the  people,  and  the  soldiers  everywhere,  trust  and 
love  the  President.  They  know  his  hands  are  clean  and  his  heart  is  honest  and  pure. 
They  know  that  the  devil  has  no  bribe  big  enough,  no  temptation  of  wealth  or  power, 
which  can  seduce  the  integrity  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

"  Hence  the  people — the  brave,  honest,  self-denying  people — the  people  who  have- 
furnished  the  men,  and  who  are  ready  to  pay  the  taxes  necessary  to  crush  the  rebel 
lion,  and  who  are  determined  to  establish  national  unity  based  on  liberty — they  are 
more  wise,  less  factious,  and  more  disinterested  than  the  politicians.  Their  instinc 
tive  sagacity  and  good  sense  have  already  settled  the  Presidential  question.  It  can 
not  be  unsettled  without  a  convulsion  which  will  endanger  the  Union  cause.  A  post 
ponement  of  the  convention  would  not  prevent  Mr.  Lincoln's  renomination;  it  might 
possibly  endanger  his  election. 

"Acquiescence,  union,  and  harmony  will  follow  the  June  convention.  Delay 
encourages  faction,  controversy,  and  division.  I  say  harmony  will  follow  the  June 
convention.  I  say  this  because  I  believe  General  Fremont  and  his  friends  are  loyal 
to  liberty  and  will  not  endanger  its  triumph  by  dividing  the  friends  of  freedom.  I  say 
this  because  I  believe  the  radical  Germans  who  support  Fremont,  who  have  done  so 
much  in  this  contest  to  sustain  free  institutions,  cannot  be  induced  by  their  enthusi 
asm  for  a  man  to  desert  or  endanger  the  triumph  of  their  principles. 

"The  hour  is  critical.  We  approach  the  very  crisis  of  our  fate  as  a  nation.  With 
union  and  harmony  our  success  is  certain. 

"The  Presidential  election  rapidly  approaches.  We  cannot  divert  attention  from 
it  by  postponing  the  convention.  We  cannot  safely  change  our  leaders  in  the  midst 
of  the  storm  raging  around  us. 

"  The  people  have  no  time  for  the  discussions  which  must  precede  and  follow 
such  a  change. 


THE  SECOND  TERM.  389 

•as  a  candidate,  but  the  people  saw  that  he  was  more  useful 
at  the  head  of  their  armies.  General  Grant  himself,  with 
the  good  sense,  fidelity,  and  integrity  which  marked  his 
career,  refused  to  have  his  name  used  to  divide  the  Union 
party.  Mr.  Lincoln  said  to  a  friend  in  regard  to  this  move 
ment:  "If  General  Grant  could  be  more  useful  as  Presi 
dent  in  putting  down  the  rebellion,  I  would  be  content.  He 
is  pledged  to  our  policy  of  emancipation  and  the  employ 
ment  of  negro  soldiers,  and  if  this  policy  is  carried  out,  it 
won't  make  much  difference  who  is  President." 

The  national  convention  met  on  the  8th  of  June,  and 
was  organized  by  the  election  of  the  Rev.  Robert  J.  Breck- 
enridge,  of  Kentucky,  as  temporary  chairman.  He  was  a 
stern  old  Presbyterian  clergyman,  and,  although  the  uncle  of 
General  John  C.  Breckenridge  of  the  rebel  army,  a  deter 
mined  Unionist  and  an  emancipationist.  In  a  bold  and 
fervid  speech,  and  amidst  the  applause  of  the  convention, 
he  declared  slavery  to  be  "  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the 
•Christian  religion,  and  incompatible  with  the  natural  rights 
of  man,"  and  he  continued:  "  I  fervently  pray  God  that 
the  day  may  come  when  throughout  the  whole  land  every 
man  may  be  as  free  as  you  are,  and  as  capable  of  enjoying 
regulated  liberty."  l 

Ex-Governor  William  Dennison,  of  Ohio,  was  made 
President.  After  endorsing  the  administration,  and  approv 
ing  the  anti-slavery  acts  of  Congress  and  the  Executive,  and 
especially  the  proclamation  of  emancipation,  the  convention 
declared  in  favor  of  amending  the  Constitution  so  as  to 
abolish  and  prohibit  slavery  forever  throughout  the  republic. 
Lincoln  was  unanimously  nominated  for  President,  and 
Andrew  Johnson,  of  Tennessee,  for  Vice-President.  Han- 

"  I  repeat,  we  cannot  safely  or  wisely  change  our  leader  In  the  midst  of  the  great 
•events  which  will  not  wait  for  conventions.  Such  is  the  instinctive,  nearly  universal 
judgment  of  the  people.  Let,  then,  the  convention  meet  and  ratify  the  choice  which 
the  people  have  already  so  clearly  indicated. 

"  I  am,  very  truly  and  respectfully  yours, 

"  ISAAC  N.  ABNOLD. 
"  Washington,  May  2,  1861." 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  505. 


3QO  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

nibal  Hamlin,  the  incumbent,  an  able  man  of  unquestionable 
integrity,  and  in  every  way  unexceptionable,  was  dropped, 
and  from  motives  of  policy,  Johnson  was  nominated  in  his 
place.  Johnson's  heroic  fidelity  to  the  Union,  as  senator 
from  Tennessee,  when  so  many  of  his  associates  proved 
faithless,  his  bold  and  stern  denunciation  of  traitors  and 
treason  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  had  secured  for  him  the 
admiration  of  the  loyal  people,  and  by  many  it  was  thought 
expedient  to  take  one  who  was  a  war  democrat  for  the  posi 
tion  of  Vice-President. 

Among  the  members  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cabinet,  Mont 
gomery  Blair,  the  Postmaster  General,  was  especially  noted 
as  his  personal  and  political  friend.  The  Blair  family  had 
made  a  bitter  war  upon  Fremont,  and  Francis  P.  Blair  had 
made  a  severe  attack  upon  him  in  the  House  of  Represent 
atives.  The  hostility  between  the  Blairs  and  Fremont  and 
his  friends  was  mutual.  The  latter  sought  by  every  means 
in  their  power  to  get  Montgomery  Blair  out  of  the  Cabinet. 
Finally,  after  the  Presidential  nominations  had  been  made, 
Fremont's  friends  made  the  removal  or  retirement  of  Mont 
gomery  Blair  a  condition  of  Fremont's  declining  the  Cleve 
land  nomination  for  the  Presidency.  They  induced  the 
Union  national  committee,  or  a  part  of  it,  to  agree  that  if 
Fremont  would  decline,  the  Postmaster  General  should 
resign.  They  succeeded  in  making  the  committee  believe 
that  Fremont  would  so  divide  the  Union  vote  in  some  of 
the  states  as  to  endanger  the  success  of  the  Union  party. 
They  tried  in  vain  to  induce  the  President  to  ask  Mr.  Blair 
to  retire.  The  President  was  satisfied  with  Blair  as  a  mem 
ber  of  his  Cabinet ;  did  not  believe  there  was  any  serious 
danger  of  defeat ;  and  consequently  refused,  but  finally,  the 
national  committee  sent  for  Judge  Ebenezer  Peck,  of 
Illinois,  a  warm  friend  of  the  Blairs,  and  devoted  to  Mr. 
Lincoln,  to  visit  Washington.  He  went,  and  said  to  the 
President :  "  Your  reelection  is  necessary  to  save  the  Union, 
and  no  man  must  stand  in  the  way  of  that  success.  Mr. 
Blair  himself,"  continued  Judge  Peck,  •'  will  gladly  retire  to 


THE  SECOND  TERM.  39  I 

strengthen  the  ticket."  l  By  these  arguments,  Judge  Peck 
and  others  finally  induced  the  President  to  ask  the  resigna 
tion  of  Mr.  Blair,  which  he  did  in  a  note  of  great  kindness 
and  friendship.  Mr.  Blair  promptly  sent  his  resignation, 
and  Governor  William  Dennison,  of  Ohio,  was  appointed 
his  successor. 

Mr.  Lincoln  gratefully  and  modestly  accepted  the 
nomination,  saying:  "  I  view  this  call  to  a  second  term  as 
in  no  wise  more  flattering  to  myself  than  as  an  expression  of 
the  public  judgment,  that  I  may  better  finish  a  difficult  work 
than  could  any  one  less  severely  schooled  to  the  task."  In 
relation  to  the  great  question  of  the  impending  Constitu 
tional  amendment,  he  said:  "  Such  an  amendment  as  is  now 
proposed  becomes  a  fitting  and  necessary  conclusion  to  the 
final  success  of  the  Union  cause.  Such  alone  can  meet  all 
cavils.  The  unconditional  Union  men,  North  and  South, 
perceive  its  importance,  and  embrace  it.  In  the  joint  names 
of  Liberty  and  Union  let  us  labor  to  give  it  legal  form  and 
practical  effect."  2 

The  democratic  convention  met  at  Chicago,  on  the  2oth 
of  August,  and  nominated  George  B.  McClellan  for  Presi 
dent,  and  George  H.  Pendleton,  of  Ohio,  for  Vice-President. 
Clement  L.  Vallandigham,  having  returned  to  Ohio  from  the 
rebel  lines  to  which  he  had  been  sent  in  pursuance  of  the 
sentence  of  a  court-martial,  was  an  active  and  prominent 
member,  and  chairman  of  the  committee  on  resolutions. 
The  second  resolution  declared  "that  after  four  years  of 
failure  to  restore  the  Union  by  war  *  *  immediate  efforts 
should  be  made  for  a  cessation  of  hostilities  with  a  view  to 
an  ultimate  convention  of  the  states  or  other  practicable 
means,  to  the  end  that  peace  may  be  restored  on  the  basis  of 
the  Federal  Union  of  the  states."  s 

1.  Judge  Peck  to  the  author. 

2.  Lincoln's  response  to  the  committee,  which  announced  his  renomination. 
McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  408. 

3.  The  following  is  the  resolution: 

"Resolved,  That  this  convention  explicitly  declare,  as  the  sense  of  the  Ameri 
can  people,  that  after  four  years  of  failure  to  restore  the  Union  by  the  experiment  of 


392  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  issue  was  thus  distinctly  presented.  The  union 
republican  party  declared  for  the  most  vigorous  prosecution 
of  the  war  to  the  complete  suppression  of  the  rebellion,  the 
utter  and  complete  extinction  of  slavery — approving  of  the 
anti-slavery  measures  of  Congress  and  the  Executive,  and 
the  pending  anti-slavery  amendment  to  the  Constitution. 
The  democratic  convention  denounced  the  action  of  Con 
gress  and  the  Executive,  declared  the  war  "  a  failure,"  and 
that  peace  should  be  sought  through  a  national  convention, 
or  other  feasible  means. 

A  most  exciting  canvass  followed.  The  people  longed 
for  peace,  but  they  believed  peace  could  only  be  secured  by 
successful  war.  In  the  language  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  they 
"  hoped  it  would  come  soon,  and  come  to  stay,  and  so  come 
as  to  be  worth  keeping  in  all  future  time."  The  President 
looked  for  it,  and  the  people  expected  it,  from  some  great 
battle-field  in  Virginia,  a  field  in  which  the  hosts  of  the 
rebellious  slaveholders  would  be  crushed  and  overthrown. 
They  believed  that  the  path  which  it  should  take  was 
through  Richmond,  and  that  the  best  agents  to  bring  it  were 
not  Vallandigham,  nor  Seymour,  nor  McClellan,  but  Grant 
and  Sherman,  Sheridan,  Thomas,  and  Farragut.  Such  a 
peace  as  they  would  bring  would  be  based  on  union  and 
a  restored  nationality ;  liberty  for  all  and  a  continental 
republic.  It  would  harmonize  and  mould  into  one  homo 
geneous  people,  a  territory  stretching  from  sunrise  to  sunset, 
from  where  the  water  never  thaws  to  where  it  never  freezes. 
The  brilliant  successes  of  Sherman  and  Schofield  in  the 
West,  of  Sheridan  under  Grant  in  the  East,  and  of  Farragut 
at  Mobile  in  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1864,  rendered  cer- 

war,  during  which,  under  the  pretense  of  a  military  necessity,  or  war  power  higher 
than  the  Constitution,  the  Constitution  itself  has  been  disregarded  in  every  part,  and 
public  liberty  and  private  right  alike  trodden  down,  and  the  material  prosperity  of 
the  country  essentially  impaired;  justice,  humanity,  liberty,  and  the  public  welfare 
demand  that  immediate  efforts  be  made  for  a  cessation  of  hostilities,  with  a  view  to 
an  ultimate  convention  of  the  states,  or  other  peaceful  means,  to  the  end  that  at  the 
earliest  practicable  moment  peace  may  be  restored  on  the  basis  of  the  Federal  Union 
of  the  states." 


THE  SECOND  TERM.  393 

tain  the  success  of  the  Union  ticket  in  November,  and  indi 
cated  an  early  triumph  of  the  Union  cause. 

Early  in  July,  Mr.  Chase  resigned  the  position  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  William  Pitt  Fessenden,  the 
very  able  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Finance  of  the 
Senate,  was  appointed  his  successor.  Mr.  Chase  had  been  a 
very  able  secretary,  and  in  his  management  of  the  finances 
during  his  administration  had  rendered  great  service  to  the 
country.  Senator  Fessenden  was  reluctant  to  accept  the 
position,  and  he  expressed  this  reluctance  very  frankly  to 
the  President.  Mr.  Lincoln  would  not  excuse  him,  and 
playfully  said  to  him  :  "  Fessenden,  it  is  your  duty  to 
accept,  and  if  you  don't,  I'll  send  you  to  Fort  Lafayette  as  a 
prisoner." 

During  the  canvass  made  by  the  friends  of  the  President 
for  his  nomination  and  election,  he  never  used  his  power  or 
his  patronage  to  secure  success.1 

The  closing  paragraph  refers  to  his  own  nomination  for 
the  Presidency.  Indeed,  such  was  his  scrupulous  delicacy 
on  this  point,  that  Preston  King,  Senator  from  New  York, 
was  sent  by  the  New  York  politicians  to  enquire,  as  King 
himself  humorously  said,  "  whether  Lincoln  intended  to 
support  the  ticket  nominated  at  Baltimore." 

Lincoln  was  re-elected  almost  by  acclamation,  receiving 
every  electoral  vote,  except  those  of  New  Jersey,  Delaware, 
and  Kentucky.  His  majority  of  the  popular  vote  was  nearly 

1.  The  following  note,  written  In  behalf  of  a  friend  In  Illinois  to  an  officeholder 
who  was  charged  with  using  his  power  against  his  friend,  will  illustrate  the  views  of 

the  President: 

"  EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  "Washington,  July  4th,  1864. 

1 '  To Esq. 

11  Dear  Sir:  Complaint  is  made  to  me  that  you  are  using  your  official  power  to 

defeat  Mr.— 's  nomination  to  Congress.   I  am  well  satisfied  with  Mr. , 

as  a  member  of  Congress,  and  I  do  not  know  that  the  man  who  might  supplant  him 
would  be  as  satisfactory.  But  the  correct  principle  I  think  is,  that  all  our  friends 
should  have  absolute  freedom  of  choice  among  our  friends.  My  wish  therefore  is, 
that  you  will  do  just  as  you  think  fit  with  your  own  suffrage  in  the  case,  and  not  con 
strain  any  of  your  subordinates  to  do  other  than  he  thinks  fit  with  his.  This  is  pre 
cisely  the  rule  I  Inculcated  and  adhered  to  on  my  part,  when  a  certain  other  nomina 
tion  now  recently  made  was  being  canvassed  for. 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

"  A.  LINCOLN  " 


394  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

half  a  million,  a  majority  greater  than  has  been  given  before 
or  since  for  any  presidential  candidate.  Those  who  feared 
the  ordeal  of  a  popular  election  amidst  the  excitement  and 
passion  of  civil  war,  were  compelled  to  acknowledge  the 
calmness,  the  sobriety,  the  wisdom  and  dignity  with  which 
the  people  passed  through  the  crisis. 

As  soon  as  the  result  was  known,  General  Grant  tele 
graphed  from  City  Point  his  congratulations,  and  added 
that  "  the  election  having  passed  off  quietly  *  *  *  is  a 
victory  worth  more  to  the  country  than  a  battle  won."  At 
a  late  hour  on  the  evening  of  the  election,  Mr.  Lincoln,  in 
response  to  a  serenade1,  said:  "I  am  thankful  to  God  for 
this  approval  of  the  people.  But  while  deeply  grateful  for 
this  mark  of  their  confidence  in  me,  if  I  know  my  own  heart, 
my  gratitude  is  free  from  any  taint  of  personal  triumph. 
*  *  It  is  not  in  my  nature  to  triumph  over  any  one,, 
but  I  give  thanks  to  Almighty  God  for  this  evidence  of  the 
people's  resolution  to  stand  by  free  government  and  the 
rights  of  humanity." 

The  autumn  of  1864  and  winter  of  1865  were  eventful,, 
and  changes  were  rapid.  The  success  of  the  national  armies, 
the  undiminished  ability  of  the  government  to  carry  on  the 
war,  and  its  unflinching  determination  to  do  so  until  its 
objects  were  fully  accomplished,  inspired  a  constantly 
increasing  confidence  in  the  loyal  people,  and  the  rebels 
became  more  and  more  desperate  and  disheartened.  Loyal 
state  governments,  with  constitutions  securing  freedom  to 
all,  had  been  organized  in  Arkansas  and  Louisiana,  and 
movements  in  the  same  direction  were  in  progress,  and  soon 
to  be  successful,  in  Missouri,  Kentucky,  and  Tennessee. 
Maryland  was  at  peace  under  a  free  government. 

Chief  Justice  Taney,  who  will  go  down  to  posterity  as 
the  author  of  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  pronounced 
in  favor  of  slavery  in  the  notable  Dred  Scott  case,  died  Octo 
ber  1 2th,  1864.  Salmon  P.  Chase  was  immediately  suggested 
as  his  successor,  but  the  hostility  of  his  friends  to  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  renomination,  and  his  abrupt  retirement  from  the  Cab- 


THE  SECOND  TERM.  395 

met,  led  those  who  did  not  know  Lincoln's  magnanimity  to 
believe  that  he  would  not  be  nominated.  The  President 
himself,  however,  declared  that  he  early  determined  to  nom 
inate  Mr.  Chase,  and  had  never  changed  that  determination. 
His  only  hesitation  arose  from  a  conviction  that  Mr.  Chase, 
even  after  he  had  taken  a  seat  on  the  bench,  would  not  aban 
don  his  aspirations  for  the  Presidency.  Salmon  P.  Chase, 
the  abolitionist,  as  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and 
the  successor  of  Roger  B.  Taney,  marked  the  completion  of 
the  revolution  on  the  subject  of  slavery. 

Meanwhile  the  cause  of  the  insurgents  was  growing 
more  and  more  desperate.  They  had  no  credit.  They 
could  not  fill  up  their  armies.  They  were  discussing  the 
project  of  arming  their  negroes,  and  giving  them  liberty  as 
the  reward  of  military  service.  And,  as  their  cause  became 
more  and  more  dark  and  uncertain,  schemes  of  desperation, 
involving  the  burning  of  Northern  cities,  murder,  robbery, 
and  assassination,  were  being  discussed  and  organized  by  the 
desperate  men  who  began  to  despair  of  success  in  civilized 
warfare. 

The  emissaries  of  the  rebels,  in  the  summer  of  1864, 
succeeded  in  creating  the  conviction  in  the  mind  of  that 
good  but  credulous  and  sometimes  indiscreet  man,  Horace 
Greeley,  that  certain  Southern  agents  in  Canada  were  anx 
ious  for  peace,  and  that  it  would  be  wise  for  the  President 
to  confer  with  them.  On  the  7th  of  July,  1864,  Greeley 
wrote  to  the  President  a  letter,  in  which  he  said  :  "  I  ven 
ture  to  remind  you  that  our  bleeding,  bankrupt,  almost  dying 
country  also  longs  for  peace  —  shudders  at  the  prospect  of 
fresh  conscriptions,  of  future  wholesale  devastations,  and  of 
fivers  of  human  blood.  *  *  j  fear,  Mr.  President,  you  do 
not  realize  how  intensely  the  people  desire  any  peace  con 
sistent  with  national  integrity  and  honor."  He  begged 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  extend  safe  conduct  to  certain  rebel 
agents  then  at  Niagara,  that  they  might  submit  their 
propositions.  The  President  was  in  a  position  to  know,  and 
did  know,  far  better  than  Mr.  Greeley  or  any  private  indi- 


396  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

vidual,  the  views  of  the  insurgents.  Their  object,  especially 
of  the  emissaries  in  behalf  of  whom  Greeley  wrote,  was  to 
aid  the  democratic  party  to  divide  the  loyal  states,  and  they 
made  a  dupe  of  good  Mr.  Greeley.  The  President  knew 
that  the  best  means  of  securing  peace  was  to  destroy  the 
rebel  armies,  and  that  Grant  and  Sherman  and  Farragut 
were  doing  more  to  bring  it  than  any  negotiations.  He 
doubted  whether  these  agents  had  any  authority.  But  as 
Mr.  Greeley  was  a  prominent  editor,  and  a  man  of  the  best 
and  purest  motives,  Lincoln,  with  his  usual  sagacity,  deter 
mined  to  convince  him,  not  only  of  his  own  desire  for  peace, 
but  to  expose  what  he  believed  to  be  the  deceptive  character 
of  these  agents.  In  reply  to  Mr.  Greeley,  he  said  :  "  If 
you  can  find  any  person  anywhere,  professing  to  have  any 
proposition  of  Jefferson  Davis,  in  writing,  for  peace,  embrac 
ing  the  restoration  of  the  Union  and  abandonment  of 
slavery,  whatever  else  it  embraces,  say  to  him  he  may  come 
to  me  with  you."  In  another  letter,  the  President  said  to 
Mr.  Greeley  :  "  I  not  only  intend  a  sincere  effort  for  peace, 
but  you  shall  be  a  personal  witness  that  it  is  made." 

Messrs.  Clay,  Sanders,  and  Holcombe,  the  persons, 
alluded  to  by  Mr.  Greeley,  had  no  authority  whatever  to 
treat  for  peace  ;  they  declared  that  they  were  in  the  confi 
dential  employment  of  their  government,  but  for  what  pur 
pose  they  were  discreetly  silent.  They  asked  for  a  safe  con 
duct  to  and  from  Washington,  which  Mr.  Greeley  urged  the 
President  to  give.  This  application  was  met  by  the  follow 
ing  passport,  or  safe  conduct,  under  the  hand  of  the  Presi 
dent  : 

"July  i8th,   1864. 
' '  To  whom  it  may  concern  : 

"Any  proposition  which  embraces  the  restoration  of  peace,  the  integ 
rity  of  the  whole  Union,  and  the  abandonment  of  slavery,  and  which 
-comes  by  and  with  an  authority  that  can  control  the  armies  now  at  war 
against  the  United  States,  will  be  received  and  considered  by  the  Execu 
tive  Government  of  the  United  States,  and  will  be  met  by  liberal  terms 
on  substantial  and  collateral  points  ;  and  the  bearer  or  bearers  thereof 
shall  have  safe  conduct  both  ways. 

"ABRAHAM  LINCOLN." 


THE  SECOND  TERM.  397 

This  put  an  end  to  the  intrigues  with  which  these  men,. 
Clay  and  his  associates,  had  entrapped  Mr.  Greeley. 

Another  prominent  editor  from  the  West  visited  Wash 
ington  soon  after  the  November  election,  to  urge  upon  the- 
Executive  that  he  should  make  peace.  He  said,  in  sub 
stance  : 

"Assuming  that  Grant  is  baffled  and  delayed  in  his  efforts  to  take 
Richmond,  will  it  not  be  better  to  accept  peace  on  favorable  terms,  than 
to  prolong  the  war  ?  Have  not  nearly  four  years  of  war  demonstrated 
that,  as  against  a  divided  North,  a  united  South  can  make  a  successful 
defence?  The  South  is  a  unit,  made  so,  it  is  conceded,  by  despotic 
power.  We  of  the  North  cannot  afford  to  secure  unity  by  giving  up  our 
constitutional  government ;  we  cannot  secure  unity  without  despotism. 
*  *  *  The  rebels  will  fill  up  their  exhausted  armies  by 

three  hundred  thousand  negroes  ;  these  negroes,  under  the  training; 
and  discipline  of  white  officers,  and  with  freedom  as  their  reward, 
will  fight  for  them.  The  Union  armies  will  be  very  greatly  reduced 
next  year  by  the  expiration  of  the  term  of  service  of  many  of  the  men. 
How  will  you  fill  up  the  ranks  ?  The  people  are  divided  ;  one-third  or 
more,  as  the  election  shows,  are  positively  and  unalterably  for  carrying  it 
on  until  the  rebellion  is  thoroughly  subjugated  ;  the  remainder  of  the 
people,  when  the  clouds  gather  black  and  threatening  again,  when 
another  draft  comes,  and  increased  taxation,  the  peace  men,  and  the 
timid,  facile,  doubtful  men,  will  go  over  to  the  opposition,  and  make  it  a 
majority.  You  can  now  secure  any  terms  you  please,  by  granting  to  the 
rebels  recognition.  You  can  fix  your  own  boundary.  You  can  hold  all 
within  your  own  lines — the  Mississippi  River,  and  all  west  of  it,  and 
Louisiana.  You  can  retain  Maryland,  West  Virginia,  and  Tennessee. 
Take  this — make  peace.  Is  not  this  as  much  territory,  which  was  for 
merly  slave  territory,  as  the  republic  can  digest,  and  assimilate  to  free 
dom  at  once.  Make  this  a  homogeneous  country — make  it  free,  and  then 
improve  and  develope  the  mighty  empire  you  have  left.  If  you  succeed 
in  subduing  the  entire  territory  in  rebellion,  can  the  nation  assimilate  and 
make  it  homogeneous  ?  Are  the  people  in  the  Gulf  states  sufficiently 
intelligent  to  make  freedom  a  blessing  ?  You  can  people,  educate,  and 
bring  up  to  the  capability  of  self-government,  the  territory  you  have 
within  your  lines.  But  taking  it  all — with  its  people  accustomed  to 
slavery,  with  the  ignorance  and  vice  resulting  therefrom,  is  it  clear  that 
it  is  worth  the  blood  and  treasure  it  may  cost  ?  " 

The  President  was  unmoved  by  these  representations, 
His  reply  was  brief  and  emphatic.  "  There  are,"  said  he,. 


398  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  just  two  indispensable  conditions  to  peace — national  unity 
and  national  liberty.  The  national  authority  must  be  restored 
through  all  the  states,  and  I  will  never  recede  from  the  posi 
tion  I  have  taken  on  the  slavery  question.  The  people 
have  the  courage,  the  self-denial,  the  persistence,  to  go 
through,  and  before  another  year  goes  by,  it  is  reasonably 
certain,  we  shall  bring  all  the  rebel  territory  within  our  lines. 
We  are  neither  exhausted  nor  in  process  of  exhaustion.  We 
are  really  stronger  than  when  we  began  the  war.  The  pur 
pose  of  the  people  to  maintain  the  integrity  of  the  republic 
has  never  been  shaken." 

For  the  purpose  of  learning  the  views  of  the  Confeder 
ate  leaders,  Francis  P.  Blair,  a  private  citizen,  but  a  man  of 
large  political  experience  and  great  influence  with  many 
family  and  personal  friends  among  the  rebels,  on  the  28th 
day  of  December,  1864,  obtained  from  the  President  per 
mission  to  pass  through  the  military  lines  South,  and  return. 
The  President  was  informed  that  he  intended  to  use  the  pass 
as  a  means  of  getting  to  Richmond,  but  no  authority  to 
speak  or  act  for  the  government  was  conferred  upon  him. 
On  his  return,  he  brought  Mr.  Lincoln  a  letter  from  Jefferson 
Davis,  addressed  to  himself,  the  contents  of  which  he  had 
been  authorized  by  Davis  to  communicate  to  the  President, 
and  in  which  Davis  stated  that  he  was  now,  as  he  had  always 
been,  willing  to  send  commissioners  or  receive  them,  and  "  to 
enter  into  a  conference  with  a  view  to  secure  peace  to  the 
two  countries."  Thereupon,  the  President  addressed  a  note 
to  Mr.  Blair,  dated  January  iSth,  1865,  in  which,  after  stat 
ing  that  he  had  read  the  note  of  Davis,  he  said  he  had  been, 
was  now,  and  should  continue,  ready  to  receive  any  agent 
whom  Davis,  or  other  influential  person  resisting  the  national 
authority,  might  informally  send  to  him,  with  a  view  of  secur 
ing  peace  to  the  people  of  "  our  common  country"  This  note 
was  delivered  by  Mr.  Blair  to  Jefferson  Davis.  The  visit  of 
Mr.  Blair  resulted  in  the  appointment  by  Davis,  of  Alexander 
H.  Stephens,  R.  M.  T.  Hunter,  and  John  A.  Campbell,  to 
confer  with  the  President  on  the  subject  of  peace,  on  the 


THE  SECOND  TERM.  399 

basis  of  his  letter  to  Mr.  Blair.  When  their  arrival  at  the 
camp  of  General  Grant  was  announced,  Secretary  Seward 
was  charged  by  the  President  with  representing  the  govern 
ment  at  the  proposed  informal  conference.  With  the  frank 
ness  which  was  characteristic  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  he  instructed 
Mr.  Seward  to  make  known  to  Messrs.  Stephens,  Hunter, 
and  Campbell,  that  three  things  were  indispensable,  to-wit: 

First,  The  restoration  of  the  national  authority  through 
out  all  the  states. 

Second,  No  receding  by  the  Executive  of  the  United 
States,  on  the  slavery  question,  from  the  position  assumed 
thereon  in  the  late  annual  message  to  Congress,  and  in  pre 
ceding  documents. 

Third,  No  cessation  of  hostilities,  short  of  an  end  of  the 
war,  and  the  disbanding  of  all  forces  hostile  to  the  govern 
ment. 

He  was  further  instructed  to  inform  them  that  all  propo 
sitions  of  theirs  not  inconsistent  with  the  above,  would  be 
considered  and  passed  upon  in  a  spirit  of  sincere  liberality. 
He  was  further  instructed  "  to  hear  and  report,  but  not  to 
consummate  anything." 

Before  any  conference  was  held,  however,  the  President 
joined  Secretary  Seward  at  Fortress  Monroe,  and,  on  the  3rd 
of  February,  Messrs.  Stephens,  Hunter,  and  Campbell  came 
on  board  the  steamer  of  the  President,  and  had  an  interview 
of  several  hours  with  him.  The  conditions  contained  in 
the  President's  instructions  to  Mr.  Seward  were  stated  and 
insisted  upon.  Those  conditions,  it  will  be  observed,  con 
tained  an  explicit  statement  that  the  Executive  would  not 
recede  from  the  emancipation  proclamation,  nor  from  any  of 
the  positions  which  he  had  taken  in  regard  to  the  abolition 
of  slavery.  The  agents  of  Davis  were  also  informed  that 
Congress  had,  by  a  constitutional  majority,  adopted  the  joint 
resolution,  submitting  to  the  states  the  proposition  to  abolish 
slavery  throughout  the  Union,  and  that  there  was  every  rea 
son  to  believe  it  would  be  adopted  by  three-fourths  of  the 
states,  so  as  to  become  a  part  of  the  Constitution.  The  rebel 


4OO  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

agents  earnestly  desired  a  temporary  cessation  of  hostilities,, 
and  a  postponement  of  the  questions,  but  to  this  the  Presi 
dent  would  not  listen.  So  far  from  it,  Mr.  Lincoln  said  to 
General  Grant:  "  Let  nothing  that  is  transpiring  change, 
hinder,  or  delay  your  military  movements  or  plans."  The 
conference  ended  without  accomplishing  anything.  l 

In  their  extremity,  General  Lee  was,  on  the  2d  of  Febru 
ary,  1865,  made  commander  of  all  the  rebel  forces,  and  in 
their  desperate  fortunes,  the  rebel  authorities  resolved  to 
call  upon  their  negroes  for  aid.  Judah  P.  Benjamin,  their 
Secretary  of  State,  in  a  public  meeting  after  the  Hampton 
Roads  conference,  said  that  the  Confederates  had  six  hun 
dred  and  eighty  thousand  black  men,  and  expressed  regret 
that  they  had  not  been  called  into  service  as  soldiers.  He 
added:  "Let  us  now  say  to  every  negro  who  wishes  to  go 
into  the  ranks  on  condition  of  being  free:  '  Go  and  fight;  you 
are  free.'  "  "  My  own  negroes,"  continued  he,  "  have  been 

1.  Mr.  Stephens  is  stated  by  a  Georgia  paper  to  have  repeated  the  following  char 
acteristic  anecdote  of  what  occurred  during  the  interview  :  "  The  three  Southern 
gentlemen  met  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward,  and  after  some  preliminary  remarks,  the 
subject  of  peace  was  opened.  Mr.  Stephens,  well  aware  that  one  who  asks  much  may 
get  more  than  he  who  confesses  to  humble  wishes  at  the  outset,  urged  the  claims  of 
his  section  with  that  skill  and  address  for  which  the  Northern  papers  have  given  him 
credit.  Mr.  Lincoln,  holding  the  vantage  ground  of  conscious  power,  was,  however, 
perfectly  frank,  and  submitted  his  views  almost  in  the  form  of  an  argument.  *  *  * 
Davis  had,  on  this  occasion,  as  on  that  of  Mr.  Stephens' s  visit  to  Washington,  made  it 
a  condition  that  no  conference  should  be  had,  unless  his  rank  as  Commander  or  Presi 
dent  should  first  be  recognized.  Mr.  Lincoln  declared  that  the  only  ground  on  which 
he  could  rest  the  justice  of  war — either  with  his  own  people,  or  with  foreign  powers — 
was  that  it  was  not  a  war  for  conquest,  for  that  the  states  have  never  been  separated 
from  the  Union.  Consequently  he  could  not  recognize  another  government  inside  of 
the  one  of  which  he  alone  was  President  ;  nor  admit  the  separate  independence  of 
states  that  were  yet  a  part  of  the  Union.  '  That,'  said  he,  '  would  be  doing  what  you 
have  so  long  asked  Europe  to  do  in  vain,  and  be  resigning  the  only  thing  the  armies  of 
the  Union  have  been  fighting  for.' 

"Mr.  Hunter  made  a  long  reply  to  this,  Insisting  that  the  recognition  of  Davis's 
power  to  make  a  treaty  was  the  first  and  indispensable  step  to  peace,  and  referred  to 
the  correspondence  between  King  Charles  I.  and  his  Parliament,  as  a  trustworthy  pre 
cedent  of  a  constitutional  ruler  treating  with  rebels.  Mr.  Lincoln's  face  then  wore 
that  indescribable  expression  which  generally  preceded  his  hardest  hits,  and  he  re 
marked  :  '  Upon  questions  of  history  I  must  refer  you  to  Mr.  Seward,  for  he  is  posted 
in  such  things,  and  I  don't  pretend  to  be  bright.  My  only  distinct  recollection  of  the 
matter  is  that  Charles  lost  his  head.'  That  settled  Mr.  Hunter  for  a  while. " 


THE  SECOND  TERM.  4OI 

to  me  and  said:  '  Master,  set  us  free,  and  we  will  fight  for 
you.'  You  must  make  up  your  mind  to  try  this  or  see  your 
army  withdrawn  from  before  your  town.  *  *  I  know  not 
where  white  men  can  be  found."  General  Lee  had  long 
before  recommended  this  policy.  But  it  was  too  late,  if 
indeed  it  could  ever  have  been  successful. 

Meanwhile  the  ides  of  March  had  come,  the  term  of  the 
Thirty-eighth  Congress  expired,  and  Mr.  Lincoln,  on  the  eve 
of  final  triumph,  was  to  be  inaugurated  President.  The  morn 
ing  of  the  4th  of  March  was  stormy  and  cloudy,  but  as  the 
hour  of  twelve  approached,  the  rain  ceased,  the  clouds  dis 
appeared,  and  the  sun  came  forth  in  all  its  splendor.  Crowds 
of  people,  the  best,  the  noblest,  the  most  patriotic,  those 
who  had  given  time  and  means  and  offered  life  to  save  the 
republic,  gathered  at  the  Capitol  to  witness  the  second 
inauguration  of  a  man  now  recognized  as  the  savior  of  his 
country.  As  the  great  procession  started  from  the  White 
House  for  the  Capitol,  a  brilliant  star  made  its  appearance 
in  the  sky,  and  was  by  many  regarded  as  an  omen  of 
approaching  peace.  The  two  houses  of  Congress  had 
adjourned  at  twelve,  but  a  special  session  of  the  Senate  had 
been  called,  at  which  Andrew  Johnson,  the  Vice-President, 
appeared,  took  the  oath  of  office,  and  became  presiding 
officer  of  that  august  and  dignified  body.  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  attended  by  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  their 
official  robes,  by  the  diplomatic  corps,  brilliant  in  the  court 
costumes  of  the  nations  they  represented,  and  by  a  crowd  of 
distinguished  officers  of  the  army  and  navy  in  full  uniform, 
prominent  citizens,  scholars,  statesmen,  governors,  judges, 
editors,  clergy,  from  all  parts  of  the  Union.  The  galleries 
were  filled  with  ladies,  and  with  soldiers  who  had  come  in 
from  the  camp  and  hospitals  around  Washington  to  witness 
the  inauguration  of  their  beloved  chief.  Striking  was  the 
contrast  between  this  audience  and  that  which  had  greeted 
him  four  years  before  at  his  first  inauguration. 

As  the  President,  followed  by  the  brilliant  assembly  from 
26 


4O2  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  Senate,  was  conducted  to  the  eastern  portico  of  the 
Capitol,  the  vast  crowd  met  him  in  front  of  the  colonnade  ; 
a  crowd  of  citizens  and  soldiers  who  would  willingly  have 
died  for  their  Chief  Magistrate.  It  was  touching  to  see  the 
long  lines  of  invalid  and  wounded  soldiers  in  the  national 
blue,  some  on  crutches,  some  who  had  lost  limbs,  many  pale 
from  unhealed  wounds,  who  had  sought  permission  to  wit 
ness  the  scene.  As  the  President  reached  the  platform,  and 
his  tall  form,  high  above  his  associates,  was  recognized, 
cheers  and  shouts  of  welcome  filled  the  air  ;  and  not  until  he 
raised  his  arm  in  token  that  he  would  speak,  could  they  be 
hushed.  He  paused  a  moment,  and,  looking  over  the  brill 
iant  scene,  still  hesitated.  What  thronging  memories  passed 
through  his  mind  !  Here,  four  years  ago,  he  had  stood  on 
this  colonnade,  pleading  earnestly  with  his  "  dissatisfied  fel 
low  countrymen  "  for  peace,  but  they  would  not  heed  him. 
He  had  there  solemnly  told  them  that  in  their  hands,  and 
not  in  his  was  the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  He  had 
told  them  they  could  have  no  conflict  without  being  them 
selves  the  "aggressors"  ;  and  even  while  he  was  pleading 
for  peace,  they  had  taken  up  the  sword  and  compelled  him 
to  "accept  war."  Now,  four  long,  weary  years  of  wretched, 
desolating,  cruel  war  had  passed  ;  those  who  had  made  that 
war  were  everywhere  being  overthrown  ;  that  cruel  institution 
which  had  caused  the  war  had  been  destroyed,  and  the 
dawn  of  peace  was  already  brightening  the  sky  behind  the 
clouds  of  the  storm. 

Chief  Justice  Chase  administered  the  oath.1     Then,  with 

1.  Two  or  three  days  after  the  inauguration,  the  author  called  at  the  White 
House,  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  showed  him  the  Bible  used  by  the  Chief  Justice  in  adminis 
tering  the  oath  to  the  President.  The  27th  and  the  28th  verses  of  the  5th  chapter 
of  Isaiah  were  marked  as  the  verses  which  the  lips  of  Mr.  Lincoln  touched  in  kissing 
the  book.  She  seemed  to  think  the  text  admonished  him  to  be  on  his  guard,  and  not 
to  relax  at  all  in  his  efforts.  The  words  marked  are  these  : 

"None  shall  be  weary, nor  stumble  among  them;  none  shall  slumber  nor  sleep; 
•neither  shall  the  girdle  of  their  loins  be  loosed,  nor  the  latchet  of  their  shoes  be  broken. 

"Whose  arrows  are  sharp,  and  all  their  bows  bent,  their  horses'  hoofs  shall  be 
counted  like  flint,  their  wheels  like  a  whirlwind." 

Chief  Justice  Chase  had  given  this  Bible  to  Mrs.  Lincoln  so  marked. 


THE  SECOND  TERM.  403 

a  clear   but   at   times   saddened   voice,  President    Lincoln 
pronounced  his  second  and  last  inaugural. 

"  Fellow  Countrymen  : — At  this  second  appearing  to  take  the  oath 
of  the  Presidential  office,  there  is  less  occasion  for  an  extended  address 
than  there  was  at  the  first.  Then,  a  statement  somewhat  in  detail  of  a 
course  to  be  pursued,  seemed  very  fitting  and  proper.  Now,  at  the  expi 
ration  of  four  years,  during  which  public  declarations  have  been  constantly 
called  forth  on  every  point  and  phase  of  the  great  contest  which  still 
absorbs  the  attention  and  engrosses  the  energies  of  the  nation,  little  that 
is  new  could  be  presented.  The  progress  of  our  arms,  upon  which  all 
else  chiefly  depends,  is  as  well  known  to  the  public  as  to  myself,  and  it 
is,  I  trust,  reasonably  satisfactory  and  encouraging  to  all.  With  high 
hope  for  the  future,  no  prediction  in  regard  to  it  is  ventured. 

"On  the  occasion  corresponding  to  this,  four  years  ago,  all  thoughts 
were  anxiously  directed  to  an  impending  civil  war.  All  dreaded  it,  all 
sought  to  avoid  it.  While  the  inaugural  address  was  being  delivered 
from  this  place,  devoted  altogether  to  saving  the  Union  without  war, 
insurgent  agents  were  in  the  city,  seeking  to  destroy  it  with  war, — 
seeking  to  dissolve  the  Union,  and  divide  the  effects  by  negotiation. 
Both  parties  deprecated  war,  but  one  of  them  would  make  war  rather 
than  let  the  nation  survive,  and  the  other  would  accept  war  rather  than  let 
it  perish;  and  the  war  came.  One-eighth  of  the  whole  population  were 
colored  slaves,  not  distributed  generally  over  the  Union,  but  localized  in 
the  southern  part  of  it.  These  slaves  constituted  a  peculiar  and  power 
ful  interest.  All  knew  that  this  interest  was  somehow  the  cause  of  the 
war.  To  strengthen,  perpetuate,  and  extend  this  interest,  was  the  object 
for  which  the  insurgents  would  rend  the  Union  by  war,  while  the  gov 
ernment  claimed  no  right  to  do  more  than  to  restrict  the  territorial 
enlargement  of  it. 

"  Neither  party  expected  for  the  war  the  magnitude  or  the  duration 
which  it  has  already  attained.     Neither  anticipated  that  the  cause  of  the 
conflict  might  cease  with,  or  even  before  the  conflict  itself  should  cease. 
Each  looked  for  an  easier   triumph,  and   a  result  less   fundamental   ai 
astounding. 

"  Both  read  the  same  Bible,  and  pray  to  the  same  God,  and  each 
invokes  His  aid  against  the  other.  It  may  seem  strange  that  any  men 
should  dare  to  ask  a  just  God's  assistance  in  wringing  their  bread  from 
the  sweat  of  other  men's  faces.  But  let  us  judge  not,  that  we  be  not 
judged.  The  prayer  of  both  could  not  be  answered.  That  of  neither 
has  been  answered  fully.  The  Almighty  has  his  own  purposes.  '  Woe 
unto  the  world  because  of  offenses,  for  it  must  needs  be  that  offenses 
come,  but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offense  cometh.'  If  we  shall 
suppose  that  American  slavery  is  one  of  these  offenses,  which  in  the 


404 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


providence  of  God  must  needs  come,  but  which,  having  continued  through 
his  appointed  time,  he  now  wills  to  remove,  and  that  he  gives  to  both 
North  and  South  this  terrible  war  as  the  woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the 
offense  came,  shall  we  discern  there  any  departure  from  those  divine 
attributes  which  the  believers  in  a  living  God  always  ascribe  to  him  ? 
Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war 
may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet  if  God  wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the 
wealth  piled  by  the  bondsman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unre 
quited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the 
lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  by  the  sword,  as  was  said  three 
thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  that  'the  judgments  of  the 
Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether. ' 

77^With  malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in  the 
right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  finish  the  work  we  are  in, 
to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne 
the  battle,  and  for  his  widow  and  his  orphans,  to  do  all  which  may 
achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  a  lasting  peace  among  ourselves  and 
with  all  nations." 

Since  the  days  of  Christ's  sermon  on  the  mount,  where  is 
the  speech  of  emperor,  king,  or  ruler,  which  can  compare 
with  this?  May  we  not,  without  irreverence,  say  that  pas 
sages  of  this  address  are  worthy  of  that  holy  book  which 
daily  he  read,  and  from  which,  during  his  long  days  of  trial, 
he  had  drawn  inspiration  and  guidance  ?  Where  else,  but 
from  the  teachings  of  the  Son  of  God,  could  he  have  drawn 
that  Christian  charity  which  pervades  the  last  sentence,  in 

.which  he  so  unconsciously  describes  his  own  moral  nature: 
"  With  malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for  #//,  with  firmness 

\in  the  right  as  God  gives  its  to  see  the  right."  No  other  state 
paper  in  American  annals,  not  even  Washington's  farewell 
address,  has  made  so  deep  an  impression  upon  the  people 
as  this. 

A  distinguished  divine,  coming  down  from  the  Capitol, 
said:  "The  President's  inaugural  is  the  finest  state  paper  in 
all  history."  A  distinguished  statesman  .from  New  York 
said  in  reply:  "  Yes,  and  as  Washington's  name  grows 
brighter  with  time,  so  it  will  be  with  Lincoln's.  A  century 
from  to-day  that  inaugural  will  be  read  as  one  of  the  most 
sublime  utterances  ever  spoken  by  man.  Washington  is  the 


THE  SECOND  TERM.  405 

great  man  of  the  era  of  the  Revolution.  So  will  Lincoln  be 
of  this,  but  Lincoln  will  reach  the  higher  position  in  history." 
This  paper,  in  its  solemn  recognition  of  the  justice  of 
Almighty  God,  reminds  us  of  the  words  of  the  old  Hebrew 
prophets.  The  paper  was  read  in  Europe  with  the  most 
profound  attention,  and  from  this  time  all  thinking  men 
recognized  the  intellectual  and  moral  greatness  of  its  author. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE  APPROACHING  END. 

THE  SANITARY  AND  CHRISTIAN  COMMISSIONS. — SANITARY  FAIRS. — 
LINCOLN'S  SYMPATHY  WITH  SUFFERING. —  PROPOSED  RETALIA 
TION. — REBEL  TREATMENT  OF  NEGRO  PRISONERS. — LINCOLN'S  RE 
CEPTION  AT  BALTIMORE. — PLANS  FOR  RECONSTRUCTION. — THE 
PRESIDENT'S  VIEWS  UPON  THE  NEGRO  FRANCHISE.  —  His 
CLEMENCY. 

IN  following  the  currents  of  great  events  at  the  capital 
and  at  the  theatre  of  war,  some  facts  of  minor  importance, 
but  of  great  interest,  have  not  been  noticed.  Among  them 
were  the  great  organizations  for  the  relief,  health,  and  com 
fort  of  the  soldiers,  known  as  the  Sanitary  and  Christian 
Commissions.  These  organizations  were  novel,  and  indi 
cate  an  advance  in  humanity  and  civilization;  they  re 
lieved  war  of  half  the  horrors  and  of  much  of  the  suffering 
incident  to  its  destruction  of  human  life.  The  tenderness 
and  sympathy  of  the  President  with  all  forms  of  suffering 
was  apparent  in  all  his  life,  and  the  stern  soldiers  of  the  war 
often  regarded  his  humane  spirit  as  a  weakness.  They 
claimed  that  his  clemency  was  often  abused,  and  that  his 
reluctance  to  inflict  punishment  interfered  with  rigid  dis 
cipline.  There  were  some  grounds  for  these  complaints. 

When,  therefore,  in  the  summer  of  1861,  Dr.  Henry  W. 
Bellows,  of  New  York,  visited  Washington,  and  laid  before 
the  President  a  plan  for  organizing  the  Sanitary  Commis 
sion,  he  was  listened  to  with  the  most  careful  consideration, 
and  he  found  in  Mr.  Lincoln  one  as  zealous  as  .himself  to 
carry  out  his  humane  purposes.  The  project  was  to  organ- 

406 


THE  APPROACHING  END.  407 

ize  a  commission  of  the  most  intelligent,  highly  respected, 
and  best  citizens  of  the  country,  whose  special  duty  it  should 
be,  in  connection  with  the  regular  medical  officers  of  the 
army,  to  look  after  and  improve  the  sanitary  condition  of 
the  soldiers,  including  their  food  and  their  medical  and 
surgical  treatment.  The  President  organized  this  commis 
sion  by  naming  Dr.  Bellows  as  its  president,  and  asso 
ciating  with  him  some  of  the  leading  citizens  of  the  great 
cities  of  the  Union.  Its  object  was  to  bring  the  wealth 
and  social  influence,  and  the  highest  intelligence,  skill,  and 
culture  of  the  republic,  to  secure  to  the  soldier  every  possible 
means  of  preserving  and  maintaining  his  health,  and  the 
very  best  possible  treatment  when  wounded  or  sick.  The 
attention  of  the  very  best  experts  was  directed  to  securing 
for  them  the  best  and  most  wholesome  food,  and  especially 
to  the  comfort  and  hygiene  of  camps  and  hospitals.  Volun 
tary  associations,  composed  of  the  best  men  and  women  of 
the  republic,  were  organized  all  over  the  loyal  states,  and 
all  the  people,  with  generous  and  patriotic  liberality,  placed 
in  the  hands  of  this  commission,  and  in  those  of  a  kindred 
association  called  the  Christian  Commission,  money,  medi 
cines,  food,  clothing,  wine,  fruit,  and  every  delicacy  for  the 
hospitals;  secular  and  religious  reading,  trained  nurses,  and 
everything  which  could  contribute  to  the  welfare  and  re 
lieve  the  wants  of  the  soldiers.  Sanitary  stores,  the  most 
skillful  surgeons,  and  kind  and  well-trained  nurses,  followed 
the  soldiers  to  every  battle-field.  The  wounded  of  both 
armies  were  tenderly  cared  for  and  nursed,  the  dying 
soothed,  and  their  last  messages  carefully  sent  to  family  and 
friends.  By  such  means  the  battle-field  was  robbed  of  half 
its  horrors,  and  the  soldier  realized  that  kindness,  skill,  and 
care  would  attend  him;  that  everything  would  be  done  to 
relieve  his  sufferings  and  restore  him  to  health.  And  if  it 
was  his  fate  to  die  for  his  country,  he  knew  that  his  last  hours 
would  be  soothed  by  affection  and  Christian  sympathy,  and 
that  he  would  be  honored  and  cherished  as  a  patriot,  by  his 
family  and  friends.  For  objects  so  noble  and  purposes  so 


408  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

holy,  no  appeal  for  aid  was  ever  made  in  vain.  From  the 
widow's  mite  and  the  orphan's  pittance,  from  the  day  laborer's 
dollar,  the  products  of  the  farm  and  the  shop,  the  gold  and 
jewels  of  the  rich,  the  means  flowed  in  so  lavishly  that  the 
resources  of  the  commissions  were  never  exhausted,  and 
many  millions  were  freely  given  during  the  war.  In  further 
ance  of  these  objects,  a  series  of  great  Sanitary  Fairs  was 
inaugurated  at  Chicago,  and  extended  to  Philadelphia,  New 
York,  Baltimore,  Boston,  Pittsburgh,  and  all  the  great  cities 
and  towns  of  the  Union.  The  President  attended  many  of 
these  fairs,  and  made  many  speeches  recommending  them 
and  urging  the  most  liberal  contributions.  To  the  great 
Northwestern  Fair  held  at  Chicago  in  September,  1863,  he 
sent  the  original  draft  of  the  proclamation  of  emancipation, 
to  be  sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  soldiers,  as  has  already  been 
stated. 

The  women  of  the  nation,  in  every  social  position,  were 
the  most  active  and  efficient  agents  in  these  enterprises. 
With  a  power  of  organization  rivalling  that  which  organized 
armies,  with  a  tireless  energy  and  executive  ability  which 
knew  no  pause  nor  rest,  many  noble  women,  and  especially 
the  widows,  mothers,  and  sisters  of  soldiers  who  had  been 
killed,  consecrated  their  time  and  sacrificed  their  lives  to 
these  noble  and  patriotic  purposes.  Party,  sect,  creed,  and 
social  distinction  melted  away  before  the  holy  influence  of 
these  objects,  and  all,  rich  and  poor,  laborer  and  millionaire, 
laid  their  gifts  upon  the  altar  of  patriotism.  Here  was  a 
universal  brotherhood.  These  institutions  were  the  fruits  of 
religious  inspiration,  and  the  fairest  flowers  of  Christian 
civilization.  The  Christian  Commission  expended  more  than 
six  millions  of  these  generous  contributions,  and  sent 
five  thousand  clergymen,  from  among  the  very  best  and 
ablest,  to  the  camps  and  battle-fields  of  the  war.  The  Sani 
tary  Commission  had  seven  thousand  associated  societies, 
and,  through  an  unpaid  board  of  directors,  distributed  with 
skill  and  discretion  fifteen  millions  of  dollars  in  supplies  and 
money. 


THE  APPROACHING  END.  409 

In  this  connection  may  be  mentioned  the  extreme  ten 
derness  and  sympathy  of  Mr.  Lincoln  for  all  forms  of  suffer 
ing.  One  day  in  November,  1864,  his  attention  was  called 
to  the  fact  that  a  widow  of  Boston,  Massachusetts,  had  lost 
five  sons  in  battle.  He  immediately  wrote  to  her  from  the 
White  House,  saying: 

"  I  feel  how  weak  and  fruitless  must  be  any  word  of  mine  which 
should  attempt  to  beguile  you  from  the  grief  of  a  loss  so  overwhelming, 
but  I  cannot  refrain  from  tendering  to  you  the  consolation  that  may  be 
found  in  the  thanks  of  the  republic  they  died  to  save. 

"  I  pray  our  Heavenly  Father  may  assuage  the  anguish  of  your 
bereavements  and  leave  only  the  cherished  memory  of  the  loved  and  lost, 
and  the  solemn  pride  that  must  be  yours  to  have  laid  so  costly  a  sacrifice 
upon  the  altar  of  freedom. 

"  Yours,  very  sincerely  and  respectfully, 

"A.   LINCOLN."1 

Incidents  illustrating  the  same  feeling  might  be  multi 
plied  without  number.8 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  606. 

2.  I  venture  to  add  the  following,  which  came  under  my  personal  observation.  In 
the  early  spring  of  1862,  a  young  lad,  who  had  lost  his  right  hand  at  the  battle  of  Bel- 
mont,  came  to  Washington  to  obtain  an  appointment  as  assistant  quartermaster.    He 
arrived  on  Saturday,  and  calling  at  my  house  found  that  I  was  out  of  the  city.     With 
the  confidence  of  youth,  he  did  not  wait  my  return,but,  having  very  strong  recommenda 
tions,  went  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  was  greatly  disappointed  when  Mr.  Stanton 
refused  to  appoint  him.     In  the  evening  he  came  to  me  in  great  distress,  and  stated 
his  case.    I  told  him  I  would  go  with  him  on  Monday  to  the  War  Office,  but  that  his 
case  was  injured  by  his  having  been  once  rejected.    On  Monday  we  called  on  Mr. 
Stanton,  who  was  receiving  and  dispatching  a  multitude  of  suitors.    I  noticed  that 
the  Secretary  was  in  an  ill  humor;  however,  we  took  our  turn,  and  I  stated  the  case. 
Turning  to  the  young  soldier,  Stanton  said:     u  Were  not  you  here  Saturday,  and  did 
I  not  refuse  to  appoint  you?    And  now  here  you  are  again  on  Monday,  troubling  me 
again.    I  cannot  and  will  not  have  my  time  wasted  in  this  way." 

I  said:  "Mr.  Stanton,  I  am  responsible  for  this  second  application."  But  he 
would  not  listen  to  me,  and  continued  to  scold  at  the  young  soldier.  I  thought  him 
rude  and  uncivil,  but  seeing  his  irritability,  retired  as  soon  as  possible,  saying  to  the 
young  soldier:  "  We  will  stop  at  the  White  House,  and  see  what  the  President  has  to 
say  to  this." 

We  found  Mr.  Lincoln  alone  in  his  office,  and  I  had  scarcely  stated  the  case,  when 

he  took  a  card  and  wrote  on  it:  "Let be  appointed  Assistant  Quartermaster, 

etc.  A.  Lincoln."  He  had  not  then  become  familiar  with  one-armed  and  one-legged 
soldiers,  and  he  seemed  touched  by  the  empty  sleeve  of  the  fine-looking  young  man. 
Putting  the  card  in  my  pocket,  I  went  to  the  Capitol.  In  the  course  of  the  day,  Stanton 
came  on  the  floor  of  the  House,  and  as  he  seemed  in  good  humor,  I  went  to  him  and 
said:  "  Mr.  Stanton,  you  seemed  very  harsh  and  rude  to  my  friend  and  constituent 
this  morning.  It  seems  to  me  that  those  who  lose  their  right  hands  in  the  service  of 


4IO  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Great  dissatisfaction  was  expressed  at  one  time  because 
Mr.  Lincoln  hesitated,  or  seemed  to  hesitate,  in  ordering 
retaliation  for  cruelties  and  barbarities  practiced  by  the 
rebels  on  Union  soldiers  and  prisoners.  The  story  of  the 
terrible  cruelties  inflicted  upon  Union  prisoners  at  Ander- 
sonville,  and  at  other  places,  and  the  alleged  massacre  of 
colored  soldiers  at  Fort  Pillow,  filled  all  the  people  with 
horror.  The  committee  on  the  conduct  of  the  war  reported 
that  the  statements  were  true,  and,  on  the  i6th  of  January, 
1865,  Senator  Wade  offered  a  resolution  directing  retaliation 
in  kind,  with  unflinching  severity. l  But  Senator  Sumner 
replied  :  "  We  cannot  be  cruel,  or  barbarous,  or  savage, 
because  the  rebels,  whom  we  are  meeting  in  war,  are  cruel, 
barbarous,  and  savage."  He  quoted  Dr.  Lieber  as  saying  : 
"  If  we  fight  with  Indians,  who  slowly  roast  their  prisoners, 
we  cannot  roast  in  turn  the  Indians  whom  we  may  capture." 
When  reports  of  these  barbarities,  and  the  official  report  of 
the  committee  on  the  conduct  of  the  war,  were  brought  to  the 
attention  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  he  was  urged  to  retaliate  in 
kind,  he  said  :  "  No,  I  never  can.  I  can  never  starve  men 
like  that."  Edward  Everett,  speaking,  however,  of  the  con 
duct  of  the  rebels  at  Andersonville  and  elsewhere,  said  : 
"  You  have  no  more  right  to  starve  than  to  poison  a  pris 
oner  of  war."  Senator  Chandler  advocated  retaliation  in 
kind,  declaring  that  Sumner's  "  sublimated  humanitarianism 
would  not  do  for  'these  accursed  rebels.'  "  McDougall,  of 

the  country  should  at  least  be  entitled  to  kindness  and  courtesy  from  the  Secretary  of 
War." 

"Well,  well,"  he  replied,  "I  was  vexed  and  annoyed  this  morning.  Take  your 
young  friend  to  the  President.  He  always  does  anything  you  ask  him,  and  he  will,  I 
doubt  not,  appoint  him." 

" Mr.  Stanton,"  I  replied,  "if  the  President  grants  my  requests,  I  take  care 
never  to  ask  anything  but  what  I  am  sure  is  right;  but  in  this  Instance  you  do  the 
President  no  more  than  justice.  He  has  already  directed  the  appointment,  and  I  beg 
you  will  not  interpose  any  obstacle  or  delay,  as  you  sometimes  do." 

Taking  the  card,  Mr.  Stanton  said:  "I  will  send  you  the  commission  as  soon  as  I 
get  to  the  War  Department."  An  hour  later  a  messenger  brought  the  commission. 


t.  See  the  debate  in  the  Senate.     Cong.  Globe,  2d  Session  38th  Congress,  pp. 
364, 411-12. 


THE  APPROACHING  END,  4!  I 

California,  a  man  of  rare  eloquence  and  genius,  spoke 
against  the  resolution,  comparing  the  proposal  with  the  wild 
outrages  and  cruelties  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  which 
had  no  parallel  save  in  the  barbarities  of  the  dark  ages. 
But  it  was  the  eloquent  voice  of  Sumner,  appealing  to  the 
nobler  and  more  humane  feelings  of  our  nature,  which 
restrained  the  just  indignation,  and  the  fierce  and  terrible 
demands  for  retaliation  in  kind;  and  the  resolution  was  so 
modified  as  to  require  ''retaliation  according  to  the  laws 
and  usages  of  war  among  civilized  nations." 

Mr.  Sumner  had  become  the  sincere  and  confidential 
adviser  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  These  two  men,  in  many  respects 
so  unlike,  became  the  most  ardent  and  affectionate  personal 
friends.  They  rode  and  walked  together,  and  seemed  to 
enjoy  each  other's  society  like  brothers.  Sumner,  the 
scholar  and  the  man  of  conventionality,  the  favorite  Ameri 
can  of  the  English  aristocracy,  found  in  Lincoln  one  that 
he  admired  and  confided  in  above  all  others. 

The  employment  of  negroes  as  soldiers  in  the  Union 
armies  had  created  intense  excitement  and  bitterness  in  the 
rebellious  states.  The  Confederate  press  and  members  of 
the  Confederate  Congress,  at  first,  in  their  angry  fury,  pro 
posed  to  execute  all  slaves  found  in  arms,  and  to  put  their 
officers  to  death.  Conscious  that  such  acts  of  atrocity 
would  bring  severe  retaliation,  the  whole  subject  was  re 
ferred  to  Jefferson  Davis,  with  power  to  act.  He  issued  a 
proclamation  declaring  that  negro  troops  and  their  white 
officers  would,  if  captured,  not  be  treated  as  prisoners  of 
war,  but  would  be  turned  over  to  state  authority  for  punish 
ment,  and  that  all  free  negroes  captured  with  arms  should 
be  sold  into  slavery.  In  reply  to  this,  the  President  issued 
an  order  directing  "  that  for  every  soldier  of  the  United 
States  killed  in  violation  of  the  laws  of  war,  a  rebel  soldier 
shall  be  executed  ;  and  for  every  one  enslaved  or  sold  into 
slavery,  a  rebel  soldier  shall  be  placed  at  hard  labor  on  pub 
lic  works,  and  continued  at  such  labor  until  the  other  shall 


412  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

be  released  and  receive  the  treatment  due  to  a  prisoner  of 
war."  1 

At  the  Sanitary  Fair  at  Baltimore,  Mr.  Lincoln  said  : 
"  The  black  soldier  shall  have  the  same  protection  as  the 
white  soldier.  If  the  reports  relative  to  this  massacre  [at 
Fort  Pillow]  are  •  substantiated,  retribution  will  be  surely 
given."2  In  accordance  with  the  order  of  the  President, 
certain  rebel  prisoners  were,  in  1864,  placed  at  hard  labor 
on  the  Dutch  Crap  Canal,  in  retaliation  for  certain  negro 
soldiers  captured  by  the  rebels  and  employed  at  work  in 
the  trenches  of  the  rebels  at  Fort  Gilmer.  General  Grant, 
in  his  correspondence  with  General  Lee  on  the  subject,  laid 
down  the  rule  which  governed  the  Union  authorities,  based 
on  the  order  of  the  President,  saying :  "  I  shall  always 
regret  the  necessity  for  retaliating  for  wrongs  done  our 
soldiers,  but  regard  it  my  duty  to  protect  all  persons  received 
into  the  army  of  the  United  States,  regardless  of  color  or 
nationality."3  The  firmness  of  the  President  and  General 
Grant  resulted  in  compelling  the  Confederates  to  accord  the 
negro  soldiers,  when  captured,  the  rights  of  prisoners  of 
war. 

This  visit  to  the  Baltimore  Fair  was  the  occasion  of  an 
exhibition  of  love  and  veneration  towards  Mr.  Lincoln  on 
the  part  of  the  negro  race,  almost  without  a  parallel  in  his 
tory.  They  crowded  around  the  Washington  depot,  and  so 
filled  the  streets  along  which  he  was  to  pass  that  it  was  diffi 
cult  for  him  to  make  his  way.  Hundreds  of  negro  women 
kneeled  on  the  sidewalks,  holding  up  their  children  that  they 
might  see  him  and  be  blessed  by  him.  They  seemed  to  feel 
that  to  look  at  him  was  a  privilege,  and  that  to  be  touched  by 
him  would  bring  a  blessing.  Their  feeling  recalled  the  old 
superstition  that  the  touch  of  the  king  would  heal  all  disease. 
But  he  was  to  them  more  than  king,  more  than  mortal. 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  280. 

2.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  281. 

3.  See  correspondence  of  Grant  and  Lee  on  the  subject.     McPherson's  History 
of  the  Rebellion,  p.  445. 


THE  APPROACHING  END.  413 

He  was  to  these  simple,  sincere  worshipers  something  super- 
naturally  good  and  great.  The  scene  at  Baltimore  might 
without  irreverence  be  compared  to  that  when  Christ  rode 
into  Jerusalem.  The  negroes,  ignorant,  simple,  and  earnest, 
looked  upon  him  as  their  savior,  their  deliverer,  and  they 
were  ready  "  to  spread  their  garments  in  his  way ;  to  cut 
down  branches  of  the  trees  and  strew  them  in  his  path." 
"And  they  that  went  before,  and  they  that  followed  after, 
cried,  *  Hosanna.  Blessed  be  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord.'  "  To  the  negro  race  he  had  passed  into  mythol 
ogy,  and  already  become  a  great  historic  figure,  free  from  all 
human  infirmity. 

The  subject  of  reconstruction,  of  restoring  the  rebel 
states  to  their  former  relations  with  the  national  government, 
was  one  of  difficulty,  and  one  in  relation  to  which  there  was 
a  wide  difference  of  opinion.  Upon  no  question  of  states 
manship  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  sagacity  and  practical  good 
sense  more  strikingly  illustrated.  There  were  many  theories 
on  the  subject,  which  were  advocated  with  great  vehemence 
and  passion.  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  adopt  any  particular 
theory  as  to  any  one  mode  by  which  the  national  authority 
could  be  restored.  Daniel  Webster,  speaking  of  the  seces 
sion  of  the  states  and  of  the  dissolution  of  the  Union, 
sadly  said  :  "  If  these  columns  fall,  they  will  be  raised  not 
again.  Like  the  Colosseum  and  the  Parthenon,  they  will  be 
destined  to  a  mournful  and  melancholy  immortality.  Bit 
terer  tears,  however,  will  flow  over  them  than  were  ever 
shed  over  Grecian  or  Roman  art,  for  they  will  be  the  ruins 
of  a  more  glorious  edifice  than  Greece  or  Rome  ever  saw — 
the  edifice  of  constitutional  American  freedom."  l  It  was 
the  difficult  but  not  impossible  work  of  Lincoln  to  raise 
again  and  reconstruct  the  shattered  fragments  of  the  repub 
lic  ;  to  rear  again  the  broken  and  prostrate  columns  of  the 
seceding  states  ;  but  this  time,  their  foundation  was  to  be 
on  the  rock  of  liberty.  As  has  been  said  before,  he  was  no 
mere  theorist,  but  a  practical  statesman,  looking  ever  for  the 

1.  Webster's  Speeches,  vol.  1,  p.  231. 


414  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

wisest  means  to  secure  the  end.  One  indispensable  con 
dition — emancipation,  the  freedom  of  the  colored  race — he 
made  the  condition  of  every  act  of  reconstruction.  This 
he  repeatedly  declared  in  his  messages  to  Congress,  in  his 
instructions  to  Mr.  Seward  at  the  time  of  the  Hampton 
Roads  conference,  and  in  many  speeches.  Loyalty  and 
fidelity  to  the  national  government  and  the  Constitution, 
including  the  proclamation  of  emancipation  and  the  amend 
ment  prohibiting  slavery,  were  the  conditions  of  recon 
struction.  He  appointed  provisional  governors  over  rebel 
lious  states,  and  recommended  Congress  to  provide  by  law  for 
the  establishment  of  courts  for  "  all  such  parts  of  the  insur 
gent  states  and  territories  as  may  be  under  the  control  of 
the  government,  whether  by  voluntary  return  to  its  allegiance 
and  order,  or  by  the  power  of  our  armies." 

The  rebel  state  governments  he  regarded  as  public  ene 
mies  to  be  subdued,  while  a  new  government,  republican  in 
form,  was  to  be  established  in  their  place.  In  initiating  steps 
to  organize  new,  loyal,  and  republican  state  governments,  he, 
as  the  Executive  and  Commander  in  Chief,  and  in  the 
absence  of  the  action  of  Congress,  prescribed  the  qualifica 
tions  of  voters,  requiring  all  to  be  loyal  to  the  Constitution. 
These  proceedings  he  regarded  as  preliminary,  and  subject 
to  the  action  and  approval  of  Congress,  before  the  new  state 
government  should  be  entitled  to  representation  in  Congress 
or  to  vote  in  the  electoral  college.  He  treated  the  Confed 
erates  as  public  enemies  ;  all  acts  of  the  Confederate  gov 
ernment,  and  of  the  rebel  states  while  in  rebellion,  were  void, 
and  these  organizations  were  to  be  overthrown  and  subju 
gated,  and  the  territory  from  which  they  were  expelled  to  be 
governed,  until  otherwise  provided,  by  martial  law.  The 
states  in  rebellion  were  not  entitled  to  vote  in  the  electoral 
college.8 

The  question  as  to  whether  the  loyal  negro  was  to  vote 
had  not  been  definitely  settled  at  the  time  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 

1.  Message  of  December,  1861.     Also  message  of  December,  1863. 

2.  See  President's  Message  of  February  8th,  1865,  and  resolutions  of  Congress. 


THE  APPROACHING  END.  415 

death.  As  early  as  March  i3th,  1864,  the  President,  writing  to 
Michael  Hahn,  Governor  of  Louisiana,  said  :  "  Now  you  are 
about  to  have  a  convention,  which,  among  other  things,  will 
probably  define  the  elective  franchise.  I  barely  suggest  for 
your  private  consideration  whether  some  of  the  colored  peo 
ple  might  not  be  let  in,  as,  for  instance,  the  very  intelligent, 
and  especially  those  who  have  fought  gallantly  in  our 
ranks."  In  his  speech  of  April  nth,  1865,  four  days 
before  his  assassination,  speaking  of  the  new  constitution  in 
Louisiana,  he  said  :  "  It  is  unsatisfactory  to  some  that  the 
elective  franchise  is  not  given  to  the  colored  man.  I  would 
myself  prefer  that  it  were  now  conferred  on  the  very  intelli 
gent,  and  on  those  who  serve  our  cause  as  soldiers.  Still 
the  question  is  not  whether  the  Louisiana  government  is 
quite  all  that  is  desirable.  The  question  is,  will  it  be  wiser 
to  take  it  as  it  is,  and  help  to  improve  it,  or  to  reject  it." 1 

In  a  letter  to  General  Wadsworth,  Mr.  Lincoln  says:  "  I 
cannot  see,  if  universal  amnesty  is  granted,  how,  under  the 
circumstances,  I  can  avoid  exacting,  in  return,  universal  suf 
frage,  or  at  least  suffrage  on  the  basis  of  intelligence  and 
military  service."2  It  may  be  assumed  as  settled,  that  Mr. 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  609.    He  adds  : 

41  We  encourage  the  hearts  and  nerve  the  arms  of  the  twelve  thousand  to  adhere 
to  their  work,  and  argue  for  It,  and  proselyte  for  It,  and  fight  for  It,  and  feed  It 
and  grow  It,  and  ripen  it  to  complete  success.  The  colored  man,  too,  seeing  all  unit 
ing  for  him,  is  inspired  with  vigilance  and  energy  and  daring  to  the  same  end. 
Grant  that  he  desires  the  elective  franchise,  will  he  not  obtain  it  sooner  by  saving 
the  already  advanced  steps  towards  it,  than  by  running  backward  over  them  ?  Con 
cede  that  the  new  government  of  Louisiana  is  only  to  what  it  should  be,  as  the  egg 
to  the  fowl ;  we  shall  sooner  have  the  fowl  by  hatching  the  egg  than  by  smashing  it. 
Again,  if  we  reject  Louisiana,  we  also  reject  one  vote  in  favor  of  the  proposed 
amendment  to  the  national  constitution.  To  meet  this  proposition  it  has  been  argued 
that  no  more  than  three-fourths  of  those  states  which  have  not  attempted  secession 
are  necessary  to  validly  ratify  this  amendment.  I  do  not  commit  myself  against  this 
farther  than  to  say  that  such  a  ratification  would  be  questionable,  and  sure  to  be  per 
sistently  questioned  ;  whilst  a  ratification  by  three-fourths  of  all  the  states  would  be 
unquestioned  and  unquestionable." 

2.  The  following  is  an  extract  from  the  Wadsworth  letter.    I  have  never  seen  the 
authenticity  of  this  letter  denied,  and  it  bears  internal   evidence  of  being  genuine. 
Mr.  Lincoln  says  : 

l'Your  desire  to  know,  in  the  event  of  our  complete  success  in  the  field,  the  same 
being  followed  by  a  loyal  and  cheerful  submission  on  the  part  of  the  South,  if  uni 
versal  amnesty  should  not  be  accompanied  with  universal  suffrage.  Now,  since  you 


41 6  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Lincoln  favored  negro  suffrage  "  on  the  basis  of  intelligence 
and  military  service  "  at  least,  but  it  is  not  clearly  proved 
that  he  would  have  made  it  universal. 

He  was  a  man  of  great  evenness  of  temper,  rarely  excited 
to  anger.  Personal  abuse,  injustice,  and  indignity  offered 
to  himself  did  not  disturb  him,  but  gross  injustice  and  bad 
faith  towards  others  made  him  indignant,  and  when  such 
were  brought  to  his  knowledge,  his  eyes  would  blaze  with 
indignation,  and  his  denunciation  few  could  endure.  When 
some  one  dared  to  suggest  to  him  that  he  might  placate  the 
rebel  masters,  and  secure  peace,  by  abandoning  the  freed- 
men,  he  exclaimed:  "  Why,  it  would  be  an  astounding  breach 
of  faith  !  If  I  should  do  it,  I  ought  to  be  damned  in  time 
and  eternity."  To  this  day,  the  South  does  not  appreciate, 
nor  does  the  world  know,  how  much  the  Confederates  were 
indebted  to  the  humane,  kind,  almost  divine  spirit  of  Lin 
coln.  The  key-note  of  his  policy  towards  the  rebels  was 

know  my  private  inclinations  as  to  what  terms  should  be  granted  to  the  South  in  the 
contingency  mentioned,  I  will  here  add,  that  if  our  success  should  thus  be  realized, 
followed  by  such  desired  results,  I  cannot  see,  if  universal  amnesty  is  granted,  how, 
under  the  circumstances,  I  can  avoid  exacting  in  return  universal  suffrage,  or,  at 
least,  suffrage  on  the  basis  of  intelligence  and  military  service.  How  to  better  the 
condition  of  the  colored  race  has  long  been  a  study  which  has  attracted  my  serious 
and  careful  attention  ;  hence  I  think  I  am  clear  and  decided  as  to  what  course  I  shall 
pursue  in  the  premises,  regarding  it  as  a  religious  duty,  as  the  nation's  guardian  of 
those  people  who  have  so  heroically  vindicated  their  manhood  on  the  battle-field, 
where,  in  assisting  to  save  the  life  of  the  republic,  they  have  demonstrated  their 
right  to  the  ballot,  which  is  but  the  humane  protection  of  the  flag  they  have  so  fear 
lessly  defended." 

The  following  note  from  the  Hon.  Charles  A.  Dana,  Assistant  Secretary  of  War 
during  the  last  two  years  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  administration,  will  throw  some  light  on 
Mr.  Lincoln's  views: 

"NEW  YORK,  November  13, 1866. 

"  My  Dear  Sir:  In  a  speech  here  before  the  election,  I  stated  that  at  the  time  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  death,  a  printed  paper  was  under  consideration  in  the  Cabinet,  provid 
ing  ways  and  means  for  restoring  state  government  in  Virginia.  In  that  paper  it  was 
stated  that  all  loyal  men,  white  or  black,  were  to  be  called  upon  to  vote  in  holding  a 
state  convention,  while  all  rebels  were  to  be  excluded.  I  said  that  I  could  not  affirm 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  definitively  adopted  that  policy  with  respect  to  black  suffrage, 
but  that  I  knew  his  mind  was  tending  to  it,  and  that  I  was  morally  certain  he  would 
have  finally  adhered  to  it.  After  Mr.  Johnson's  accession,  all  the  provisions  of  the 
paper  were  Incorporated  in  the  presidential  proclamation  respecting  the  reorganiza 
tion  of  state  governments,  with  the  single  exception  of  this  one  making  all  loyal  men 
voters,  whether  white  or  black.  *  *  Yours  very  truly, 

"  Hon.  Isaac  Arnold.  CHARLES  A.  DANA." 


THE  APPROACHING  END.  417 

bold  ly  struck  in  his  second  inaugural,  when  he  declared  "  with 
malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in 
the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  finish  the 
work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,  * 
to  do  all  which  may  achieve  a  just  and  lasting  peace  among 
ourselves  and  among  all  nations." 

In  the  midst  of  the  fierce  passions  and  bitter  animosities 
growing  out  of  the  war,  many  thought  him  too  mild  and  too- 
forbearing;  but  his  conviction  was  clear,  and  his  determina 
tion  firm,  that  when  there  was  a  sincere  repentance,  then 
there  should  be  pardon  and  amnesty.  In  the  face  of  those 
who  sternly  demanded  punishment  and  confiscation,  and 
the  death  of  traitors  and  conspirators,  he  declared:  "When 
a  man  is  sincerely  penitent  for  his  misdeeds,  and  gives  satis 
factory  evidence  of  it,  he  can  safely  be  pardoned." 

When  the  fiery  and  eloquent  Henry  Winter  Davis,  the 
stern,  blunt,  downright  Ben  Wade,  and  the  unforgiving 
Thaddeus  Stevens,  demanded  retaliation,  confiscation,  death,, 
desolation,  and  bloody  execution,  the  voice  of  Lincoln  rose 
clear  above  the  storm,  firm,  gentle,  but  powerful,  like  the 
voice  of  God.  "  With  malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for 
all,  with  firmness  in  the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the 
right,"  he  hushed  the  raging  storm  of  passion,  and  brought 
back  peace  and  reconciliation. 


27 


CHAPTER    XXV. 

VICTORY    AND    DEATH. 

CONFERENCE  OF  LINCOLN,  GRANT,  AND  SHERMAN. — RICHMOND 
FALLS. — LEE  SURRENDERS. — JEFFERSON  DAVIS  CAPTURED. — LIN 
COLN'S  VISIT  TO  RICHMOND. — THE  LAST  DAY  OF  His  LIFE. — His 
ASSASSINATION. — FUNERAL. — THE  WORLD'S  GRIEF. — MRS.  LIN 
COLN  DISTRACTED. — INJUSTICE  TO  HER. — HER  DEATH. 

LET  us  resume  the  narration  of  the  progress  of  the 
Union  arms.  Fort  Fisher,  which  guards  the  harbor  of  Wil 
mington,  North  Carolina,  was  captured  by  General  Terry, 
on  the  i5th  of  January,  1865.  Sherman,  moving  from  Savan 
nah,  entered  Columbia,  the  capital  of  South  Carolina,  on  the 
iyth  of  February.  From  thence  he  moved  to  Goldsboro, 
North  Carolina,  and  opened  communication  with  General 
Schoneld,  who  had,  after  the  destruction  of  Hood's  army  at 
Nashville,  been  ordered  east.  The  rebels  under  Hardee 
abandoned  Charleston,  and  Admiral  Dahlgren  and  General 
Foster  took  possession  of  the  capital  of  South  Carolina. 
General  Lee  appointed  General  Joe  Johnston  to  command 
the  forces  which  were  trying  to  oppose  the  advance  of  Sher 
man,  and  at  Bentonville  there  was  a  severe  battle,  but  John 
ston  was  compelled  to  retire;  and  now  the  Union  forces 
were  concentrating  around  Lee,  and  the  end  was  rapidly 
approaching. 

On  the  3d  of  March,  1865,  as  is  usual  on  the  last  night 
of  the  sessions  of  Congress,  the  Executive  with  the  Cabinet 
was  in  the  President's  room  at  the  Capitol,  to  receive  and 
act  upon  the  numerous  bills  which  pass  during  the  last  hur 
ried  hours  of  the  session.  Congress  continued  in  session 

418 


VICTORY  AND  DEATH.  419 

from  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  to  eight  o'clock  on  the 
morning  of  the  4th.  It  was  a  stormy,  snowy  night,  but 
within  all  was  bright,  cheerful,  and  full  of  hope.  While  the 
President  was  thus  waiting,  and  receiving  the  congratula 
tions  of  senators,  members  of  Congress,  and  other  friends,  a 
telegram  came  from  General  Grant  to  the  Secretary  of  War, 
informing  him  that  Lee  had  at  last  sought  an  interview,  with 
the  purpose  of  seeing  whether  any  terms  of  peace  could  be 
agreed  upon.  The  despatch  was  handed  to  the  President. 
Reflecting  a  few  moments,  he  wrote  the  following  reply, 
which  was  then  submitted  to  the  Cabinet  and  sent: 

"  WASHINGTON,  March  3,  1865,  12  p.  M. 

"  LIEUTENANT  GENERAL  GRANT: — The  President  directs  me  to 
.say  to  you  that  he  wishes  you  to  have  no  conference  with  General  Lee, 
unless  it  be  for  the  capitulation  of  General  Lee's  army,  or  on  some  other 
minor  and  purely  military  matter.  He  instructs  me  to  say  that  you  are 
not  to  decide,  discuss,  or  confer  upon  any  political  question.  Such  ques 
tions  the  President  holds  in  his  own  hands,  and  will  submit  them  to  no 
military  conferences  or  conventions.  Meanwhile  you  are  to  press  to  the 
utmost  your  military  advantages.  EDWIN  M.  STANTON, 

"  Secretary  of  War" 

On  the  27th  of  March,  the  President,  by  appointment, 
met  Generals  Grant  and  Sherman  in  the  cabin  of  the  steamer 
"  Ocean  Queen,"  lying  in  the  James  River,  and  not  far  from 
the  headquarters  of  General  Grant.  This  meeting  has  been 
appropriately  made  the  subject  of  a  great  historical  painting 
called  "  The  Peace  Makers,"  and  the  artist  has  very  felicit 
ously  represented  the  prophetic  rainbow  spanning  the  boat, 
and  shining  in  at  the  windows,  where  these  remarkable 
men  held  their  last  conference.  l 

The  perfect  harmony,  earnest  and  cordial  cooperation, 
and  brotherly  friendship  between  the  great  military  leaders, 
Grant  and  Sherman,  Sheridan  and  Meade,  and  their  subor 
dinates,  was  in  striking  contrast  with  the  jealousy  and  quar 
rels  of  some  of  the  President's  earlier  generals.  He  could 
not  but  recall  the  days  of  McClellan  and  others,  when  such 

1.  This  painting  by  Healy  was  made  for  E.  B.  McCagg,  Esq.,  of  Chicago,  and  now 
hangs  on  the  walls  of  the  Calumet  Club  of  that  city. 


42O  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

quarrels  were  among  the  heaviest  burdens  he  had  to  bear. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  history  three  men  more 
unlike  physically  and  mentally,  and  yet  of  greater  historic 
interest  or  more  distinguished  ability,  than  the  statesman 
President,  and  Grant  and  Sherman.  And,  although  so 
entirely  unlike  one  another,  each  was  a  type  of  American 
character,  and  all  had  peculiarities  not  only  distinctively  Amer 
ican,  but  Western.  Lincoln's  towering  form  had  been  given 
dignity  and  repose  by  the  great  deeds  and  great  thoughts  to 
which  he  had  given  such  eloquent  expression.  His  rugged 
and  strongly  marked  features,  lately  so  deeply  furrowed 
with  care,  anxiety,  over-work,  and  responsibility,  were  now 
full  of  hope  and  confidence.  He  met  the  two  great  soldiers 
with  the  most  grateful  cordiality.  With  clear  intelligence, 
he  grasped  the  military  situation,  and  listened  with  the  most 
eager  and  profound  attention  to  the  details  of  the  final 
moves  which  it  was  hoped  would  end  the  terrible  game  of 
war. 

Contrasting  with  the  tall,  towering  form  of  Lincoln,  was 
the  short,  sturdy,  firm  figure  of  the  hero  of  Vicksburg,  every 
feature  and  every  movement  expressing  inflexible  will  and 
resolute  determination.  Also  strikingly  in  contrast  with 
these  was  Sherman,  with  his  intellectual  head,  his  keen  rest 
less  eye,  his  nervous  energy,  his  sharply  outlined  features, 
bronzed  by  that  magnificent  campaign  from  Chattanooga  to 
Savannah,  and  now  fresh  from  the  conquest  of  North  and 
South  Carolina.  "Hold  Lee,"  he  said  to  Grant,  "in  his  for 
tified  lines  for  two  weeks;  our  wagons  will  be  loaded,  and 
we  will  start  for  Burksville.  If  Lee  will  remain  in  Rich 
mond  until  I  can  reach  Burksville,  we  will  have  him  between 
our  thumb  and  fingers."  1 

1.  The  following  most  interesting  letter  from  General  Sherman  to  the  author 
gives  the  details  of  this  interview  : 

"WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  November  28th,  1872. 

"THANKSGIVING  DAY. 
"  Hon.  I.  N.  ARNOLD,  Chicago,  111. 

"My  Dear  Sir :  I  have  just  received  your  letter  of  November  26th,  and  it  so 
happens  that  it  comes  to  me  on  an  official  holiday,  when  I  am  at  leisure,  and  at  my 
house,  where  I  keep  the  books  of  letters  written  by  me  during  and  since  the  civil  war. 


VICTORY  AND  DEATH.  421 

Sherman,  with  his  army  of  eighty  thousand  men,  as  hardy 
and  as  brave  as  Caesar's  Gallic  Legion,  once  in  close  commu 
nication  with  Grant,  Lee  would  be  "  shut  up  in  Richmond 

My  records  during  the  war  are  quite  complete,  but  since  the  war  I  have  only  retained 
copies  of  letters  on  purely  official  business,  and  I  find  no  copy  of  the  one  you  describe 
as  having  been  lost  in  the  great  flre  of  Chicago  last  year.  I  regret  this  extremely,  as 
in  my  official  records  I  find  but  a  bare  allusion  to  the  interview  with  Mr.  Lincoln  at 
City  Point,  in  March,  1865,  an  account  of  which  was  contained  in  my  former  letter, 
and  which  you  now  desire  me  to  repeat.  I  must  do  so  entirely  from  memory,  and 
you  must  make  all  allowances,  for  nearly  eight  eventful  years  have  intervened. 

"  On  the  21st  of  March,  1865,  the  army  which  I  commanded  reached  Goldsboro, 
North  Carolina,  and  there  made  junction  with  the  forces  of  Generals  Schofield  and 
Terry,  which  had  come  up  from  the  coast  at  Newbern  and  Wilmington. 

"  My  army  was  hard  up  for  food  and  clothing,  which  could  only  reach  us  from  the 
•coast,  and  my  chief  attention  was  given  to  the  reconstruction  of  the  two  railroads 
which  meet  at  Goldsboro,  from  Newbern  and  Wilmington,  so  as  tore-clothe  the  men, 
and  get  provisions  enough  with  which  to  continue  our  march  to  Burksville,  Virginia, 
where  we  would  come  into  communication  with  General  Grant's  army,  then  investing 
Richmond  and  Petersburg.  I  had  written  to  General  Grant  several  times,  and  had 
received  letters  from  him,  but  it  seemed  to  me  all  important  that  I  should  have  a  per 
sonal  interview.  Accordingly,  on  the  25th  of  March,  leaving  General  Schofield  in 
command,  I  took  the  first  locomotive  which  had  come  over  the  repaired  railroad, 
back  to  Newbern  and  Morehead  City,  where  I  got  the  small  steamer  '  Russia'  to  con 
vey  me  to  City  Point.  We  arrived  during  the  afternoon  of  March  27th,  and  I  found 
General  Grant  and  staff  occupying  a  neat  set  of  log  huts,  on  a  bluff  overlooking  the 
James  River.  The  General's  family  was  with  him.  We  had  quite  a  long  and  friendly 
talk,  when  he  remarked  that  the  President,  Mr.  Lincoln,  was  near  by  in  a  steamer 
lying  at  the  dock,  and  he  proposed  that  we  should  call  at  once.  We  did  so,  and  found 
Mr.  Lincoln  on  board  the  '  Ocean  Queen.'  We  had  met  in  the  early  part  of  the  war, 
and  he  recognized  me,  and  received  me  with  a  warmth  of  manner  and  expression  that 
was  most  grateful.  We  then  sat  some  time  in  the  after-cabin,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  made 
many  inquiries  about  the  events  which  attended  the  march  from  Savannah  to  Golds 
boro,  and  seemed  to  enjoy  the  humorous  stories  about  'our  bummers,'  of  which  he 
had  heard  much.  When  in  lively  conversation,  his  face  brightened  wonderfully;  but 
if  the  conversation  flagged,  his  face  assumed  a  sad  and  sorrowful  expression, 

"General  Grant  and  I  explained  to  him  that  my  next  move  from  Goldsboro  would 
bring  my  army,  increased  to  eighty  thousand  men  by  Schofield' s  and  Terry's  reinforce 
ments,  in  close  communication  with  General  Grant's  army,  then  in  vesting  Lee  In  Rich 
mond,  and  that  unless  Lee  could  effect  his  escape,  and  make  junction  with  Johnston  in 
North  Carolina,  he  would  soon  be  shut  up  in  Richmond  with  no  possibility  of  supplies, 
and  would  have  to  surrender.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  extremely  interested  in  this  view  of 
the  case,  and  when  we  explained  that  Lee's  only  chance  was  to  escape,  join  Johnston, 
and,  being  then  between  me  in  North  Carolina  and  Grant  in  Virginia,  could  choose 
which  to  fight.  Mr.  Lincoln  seemed  unusually  impressed  with  this,  but  General 
Grant  explained  that  at  the  very  moment  of  our  conversation,  General  Sheridan  was 
passing  his  cavalry  across  James  River  from  the  north  to  the  south,  that  he  would, 
with  this  cavalry,  so  extend  his  left  below  Petersburg  as  to  meet  the  South  Shore 
Road,  and  that  if  Lee  should  '  let  go '  his  fortified  lines,  he  (Grant)  would  follow 
him  so  close  that  he  could  not  possibly  fall  on  me  alone  in  North  Carolina.  I,  in  like 
manner,  expressed  the  fullest  confidence  that  my  army  in  North  Carolina  was  willing 
to  cope  with  Lee  and  Johnston  combined,  till  Grant  could  come  up.  But  we  both 


422  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

with  no  possibility  of  obtaining  supplies,  and  would  have  to 
surrender."  Lincoln,  when  told  that  •"•  one  more  bloody  bat 
tle  was  likely  to  occur  before  the  close  of  the  war,"  with 

agreed  that  one  more  bloody  battle  was  likely  to  occur  before  the  close  of  the 
war. 

"Mr.  Lincoln  repeatedly  inquired  as  to  General  Schofleld's  ability,  in  my  absence, 
and  seemed  anxious  that  I  should  return  to  North  Carolina,  and  more  than  once 
exclaimed:  'Must  more  blood  be  shed?  Cannot'this  last  bloody  battle  be  avoided?' 
We  explained  that  we  had  to  presume  that  General  Lee  was  a  real  general;  that 
he  must  see  that  Johnston  alone  was  no  barrier  to  my  progress,  and  that  if  my  army 
of  eighty  thousand  veterans  should  reach  Burksville,  he  was  lost  in  Richmond,  and 
that  we  were  forced  to  believe  he  would  not  await  that  inevitable  conclusion,  but 
make  one  more  desperate  effort. 

"  I  think  we  were  with  Mr.  Lincoln  an  hour  or  more,  and  then  returned  to  G  eneral 
Grant's  quarters,  where  Mrs.  Grant  had  prepared  us  some  coffee,  or  tea.  During  this 
meal,  Mrs.  Grant  inquired  if  we  had  seen  Mrs.  Lincoln.  I  answered:  l  No.  I  did  not 
know  she  was  on  board.'  'Now,'  said  Mrs.  Grant,  'you  are  a  pretty  pair,'  and  went 
on  to  explain  that  we  had  been  guilty  of  a  piece  of  unpardonable  rudeness;  but 
the  General  said,  '  Never  mind.  We  will  repeat  the  visit  to-morrow,  and  can  then  see 
Mrs.  Lincoln.' 

"The  next  morning  a  good  many  officers  called  to  see  me,  among  them  Generals 
Meade  and  Ord,  also  Admiral  Porter.  The  latter  inquired  as  to  the  'Russia,'  in  which 
I  had  come  up  from  Morehead  City,  and  explained  that  she  was  a  slow  tub,  and  he 
would  send  me  back  in  the  steamer  'Bat,'  Captain  Barnes,  U.  S.  Navy,  because 
she  was  very  fleet,  and  could  make  seventeen  knots  an  hour.  Of  course  I  did  not 
object,  and  fixed  that  afternoon  to  start  back. 

"Meantime  we  had  to  repeat  our  call  on  Mr.  Lincoln  on  board  the  '  Ocean  Queen,' 
then  anchored  out  in  the  stream  at  some  distance  from  the  wharf.  Admiral  Porter 
went  along,  and  we  took  a  tug  at  the  wharf,  which  conveyed  us  off  to  the  '  Ocean 
Queen.'  Mr.  Lincoln  met  us  all  in  the  same  hearty  manner  as  on  the  previous  occa 
sion,  and  this  time  we  did  not  forget  Mrs.  Lincoln.  General  Grant  inquired  for  her, 
and  the  President  explained  that  she  was  not  well,  but  he  stepped  to  her  state-room 
and  returned  to  us  asking  us  to  excuse  her.  We  all  took  seats  In  the  after-cabin,  and 
the  conversation  became  general.  I  explained  to  Mr.  Lincoln  that  Admiral  Porter 
had  given  me  the  'Bat,'  a  very  fleet  vessel,  to  carry  me  back  to  Newbern,  and  that  I 
was  ready  to  start  back  then.  It  seemed  to  relieve  him,  as  he  was  afraid  that  some 
thing  might  go  wrong  at  Goldsboro  in  my  absence.  I  had  no  such  fears,  and  the  most 
perfect  confidence  in  General  Schofield,  and  doubt  not  I  said  as  much. 

"  I  ought  not,  and  must  not,  attempt  to  recall  the  words  of  that  conversation.  Of 
course  none  of  us  then  foresaw  the  tragic  end  of  the  principal  figure  of  that  group 
so  near  at  hand  ;  and  none  of  us  saw  the  exact  manner  In  which  the  war  was  to  close; 
but  I  knew  that  I  felt,  and  I  believe  the  others  did,  that  the  end  of  the  war  was 
near. 

"  The  imminent  danger  was,  that  Lee,  seeing  the  meshes  closing  surely  around 
him,  would  not  remain  passive,  but  would  make  one  more  desperate  effort  ;  and  Gen 
eral  Grant  was  providing  for  it,  by  getting  General  Sheridan's  cavalry  well  to  his  left 
flank,  so  as  to  watch  the  first  symptoms,  and  to  bring  the  rebel  army  to  bay  till  the 
infantry  could  come  up.  Meantime  I  only  asked  two  weeks  delay,  the  status  quo, 
when  we  would  have  our  wagons  loaded,  and  would  start  from  Goldsboro  for  Burks 
ville,  via  Raleigh.  Though  I  cannot  attempt  to  recall  the  words  spoken  by  any  one  of 
the  persons  present  on  that  occasion,  I  know  we  talked  generally  about  what  was  to 


VICTORY  AND  DEATH.  423 

characteristic  humanity  exclaimed:  'Must  more  blood  be 
shed  ?  Cannot  this  bloody  battle  be  avoided  ? "  And  even 
while  they  were  consulting,  Sheridan,  the  embodiment  of 
energy  and  rapidity  of  movement,  was  marching  with  the 
utmost  celerity  far  to  Grant's  left,  to  seize  and  cut  off  the 
only  available  route  for  Lee's  escape.  Ten  days  of  inces 
sant  marching  and  fighting,  with  Sheridan  in  the  lead  and 
Grant  closely  following,  finished  the  campaign.  The  line  of 
intrenchments  around  Richmond  and  Petersburg  extended 

be  done  when  Lee's  and  Johnston's  armies  were  beaten  and  dispersed.  On  this  point 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  very  full.  He  said  that  he  had  long  thought  of  It,  that  he  hoped  this 
end  could  be  reached  without  more  bloodshed,  but  in  any  event  he  wanted  us  to  get  the 
deluded  men  of  the  rebel  armies  disarmed  and  back  to  their  homes  ;  that  he  contem 
plated  no  reyeiige;  no  harsh  measures,  but  quite  the  contrary,  and  that  their  suffering 
and  hardships  during  the  war  would  make  them  the  more  submissive  to  law.  I  cannot 
say  that  Mr.  Lincoln,  or  any  body  else,  used  this  language;  but  I  know  I  left  his  pres 
ence  with  the  conviction  that  he  had  in  his  mind,  or  that  his  Cabinet  had,  some  plan  of 
settlement  ready  for  application,  the  moment  Lee  and  Johnston  were  defeated. 

"  In  Chicago,  about  June  or  July  of  that  year,  when  all  the  facts  were  fresh  iu  my 
mind,  I  told  them  to  Geo.  P.  A.  Healy,  the  artist,  who  was  casting  about  for  a  sub 
ject  for  an  historical  painting,  and  he  adopted  this  interview.  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
then  dead,  but  Healy  had  a  portrait  which  he  himself  had  made  at  Springfield,  some 
five  or  six  years  before.  With  this  portrait,  some  existent  photographs,  and  the  strong- 
resemblance  in  form  of  Mr.  Swett,  of  Chicago,  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  he  made  the  picture 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  seen  in  this  group.  For  General  Grant,  Admiral  Porter,  and  myself, 
he  had  actual  sittings,  and  I  am  satisfied  the  fine  portraits  in  this  group  of  Healy's 
are  the  best  extant.  The  original  picture,  life  size,  is,  I  believe,  now  in  Chicago,  the 
property  of  Mr.  McCagg;  but  Healy  afterwards,  in  Rome,  painted  ten  smaller  cop 
ies,  about  18x24  inches,  one  of  which  I  now  have,  and  it  is  now  within  view.  I  think 
the  likeness  of  Mr.  Lincoln  by  far  the  best  of  the  many  I  have  seen  elsewhere,  and 
those  of  General  Grant,  Admiral  Porter,  and  myself,  equally  good  and  faithful.  I 
think  Admiral  Porter  gave  Healy  a  written  description  of  our  relative  positions  in  that 
interview,  also  the  dimensions,  shape,  and  furniture  of  the  cabin  of  the  'Ocean 
Queen/  but  the  rainbow  is  Healy's — typical,  of  course,  of  the  coming  peace.  Tn  this 
picture  I  seem  to  be  talking,  the  others  attentively  listening.  Whether  Healy  made 
this  combination  from  Admiral  Porter's  letter  or  not,  I  cannot  say  ;  but  I  thought  that 
he  caught  the  idea  from  what  I  told  him  had  occurred,  when  saying  'that  if  Lee  would 
only  remain  in  Richmond  until  I  could  reach  Burksville,  we  would  have  him  between 
our  thumb  and  fingers,'  suiting  the  action  to  the  word.  It  matters  little  what  Healy 
meant  by  his  historic  group,  but  it  is  certain  we  four  sat  pretty  much  as  represented, 
and  were  engaged  in  an  important  conversation,  during  the  forenoon  of  March  28th» 
1865,  and  that  we  parted  never  to  meet  again. 

"  That  afternoon  I  embarked  on  the  k  Bat,'  and  we  steamed  down  the  coast  to  Hat- 
teras  Inlet,  which  we  entered,  and  proceeded  to  Newbern,  and  from  Newberu  to 
Goldsboro  by  rail,  which  I  reached  the  night  of  March  30th. 

"I  hope  this  letter  covers  the  points  of  your  inquiry. 
"  With  great  respect,  '•  Yours  truly, 

"W.  T.  SHBBMAN,  General." 

Hon.  I.  N.  Arnold,  Chicago,  III. 


424  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

some  forty  miles.  Grant  had  resolved  to  interpose  Sheridan 
between  Lee  and  retreat.  On  the  29th,  he  wrote  to  Sheri 
dan:  "  I  now  feel  like  ending  the  matter,  if  it  be  possible, 
before  going  back.  *  *  Push  round  the  enemy,  and  get 
on  his  right  rear;  we  will  act  as  one  army  here,  until  it  is 
seen  what  can  be  done  with  the  enemy." 

The  rain  fell  in  torrents,  the  soil  was  deep  mud,  and  the 
roads  were  nearly  impassable;  but  nothing  could  stop  or  stay 
Sheridan.  He  pushed  on  over  all  obstacles  to  Five  Forks. 
On  the  morning  of  March  3ist,  Lee,  struggling  to  escape, 
had  eighteen  thousand  men  in  front  of  Sheridan's  ten  thou 
sand.  While  he  fought,  Sheridan  sent  word  to  Grant:  "  I 
will  hold  Dinwiddie  until  I  am  compelled  to  leave."  Grant 
promptly  sent  an  entire  corps  to  his  aid.  Fighting  and 
marching,  and  preventing  Lee  from  making  his  escape, 
nothing  could  exceed  the  activity  and  energy  of  Sheridan. 
On  the  morning  of  the  26.  of  April,  the  works  in  front  of 
Petersburg  were  carried.  Lee  fled  westward,  his  object 
being  to  reach  Burksville  Junction,  where  two  roads  met, 
and  from  thence  either  to  join  Johnston,  or  escape  to  the 
mountains.  Sheridan  captured  a  telegraphic  message,  not 
yet  sent,  ordering  three  hundred  thousand  rations  to  feed 
Lee's  famishing  army.  Sheridan  forwarded  the  message, 
with  the  hope  that  the  rations  would  be  sent  forward  and 
fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Union  army.  Such  was  the  result. 
And  now  Sheridan  had  seized  and  occupied  the  only  road 
by  which  Lee  could  obtain  supplies.  The  rebel  army  was 
without  food,  with  Sheridan  and  his  cavalry  and  the  Fifth 
Army  Corps  in  its  front,  while  Grant  was  behind,  at  its  heels 
and  on  its  flank,  with  his  eager  and  victorious  troops.  Lee 
made  desperate  efforts  to  escape,  to  cut  his  way  through, 
but  in  vain.  The  remains  of  the  proud  and  often  victorious 
Army  of  Northern  Virginia  struggled  and  fought  gallantly,  but 
were  hemmed  in,  and  everywhere  met  by  a  force  which  they 
could  not  break  through.  On  Sunday,  the  2d  of  April, 
Longstreet,  who  had  held  the  lines  north  of  the  James,  was 
ordered  to  join  Lee. 


VICTORY  AND  DEATH.  425 

The  bells  of  Richmond  tolled  the  knell  of  the  Confed 
eracy.  The  drums  beat,  calling  on  the  citizens  and  militia 
to  man  the  lines  from  which  Longstreet  was  retiring.  The 
rebellion  was  at  its  last  gasp.  At  1 1  A.  M.  of  that  Sunday 
morning,  Lee  sent  a  message  to  Jefferson  Davis,  saying  that 
Richmond  and  Petersburg  could  no  longer  be  held.  Davis 
hurriedly  fled,  and  on  the  dawn  of  Monday,  the  3d,  General 
Weitzel  sent  forward  a  party  of  Union  cavalry,  who  hoisted 
the  national  flag  on  the  State  House,  and  took  possession  of 
the  rebel  capital.  But  not  for  Richmond  and  Petersburg  did 
the  iron  will  of  Grant  for  one  moment  turn  aside  from  his 
determination  to  "  end  the  matter  "  then  and  there,  by  the 
destruction  of  the  army  of  Lee.  Pushing  on  with  all  possi 
ble  speed,  the  army  of  the  James,  under  General  Ord,  on 
one  side  of  the  Appomattox,  and  that  of  Grant  on  the  other, 
and  Sheridan  on  his  front,  there  was  left  no  escape  possible. 
The  chase  was  up.  On  the  9th  of  April,  after  one  last  des 
perate  effort  to  cut  his  way  through,  Lee  sent  a  white  flag, 
asking  a  suspension  of  hostilities,  pending  negotiations  for 
terms  of  surrender.  An  interview  was  held  between  Grant 
and  Lee,  and  generous  terms  of  capitulation  agreed  upon. 
The  arms,  artillery,  and  public  property  were  given  up;  offi 
cers  and  soldiers  were  paroled  not  to  take  up  arms  against 
the  United  States  until  properly  exchanged,  and  the  officers 
and  men  were  allowed  to  return  to  their  homes,  not  to  be  dis- 
turbed  so  long  as  they  observed  their  parole  and  the  laws. 

Lee  had  many  qualities  which  created  sympathy,  and  the 
scene  after  the  surrender  was  sadly  pathetic.  Riding  through 
the  ranks  of  his  ragged  and  half-starved  soldiers,  he  said,  in 
a  voice  broken  with  grief:  "  Men,  we  have  fought  through 
the  war  together;  I  have  done  the  best  I  could  for  you."  It 
was  not  in  the  heart  of  his  generous  and  victorious  foe  to 
exact  severe  terms,  and  his  misfortunes  almost  disarmed  jus 
tice.  The  meeting  of  the  rank  and  file,  and  of  the  officers 
of  the  two  armies,  was  cordial.  They  had  learned  to  respect 
each  other.  The  rebels  were  really  starving.  The  Union 
soldiers  grasped  the  hands  of  their  late  enemies,  made  them 


426  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

their  guests,  divided  with  them  their  rations,  supplied  them 
with  clothing,  and  loaned  them  money  with  which  to  go  to 
their  homes. 

The  surrender  of  Lee  was  regarded  by  the  other  rebel 
leaders  as  fatal.  They  deemed  it  useless  to  prolong  the 
struggle.  On  the  5th  of  April,  Grant  had  requested  Sherman 
to  push  forward  against  Johnston.  "  Let  us,"  said  he,  "  see 
if  we  cannot  finish  the  job."  On  the  i3th  of  April,  Sherman 
occupied  Raleigh,  and  on  the  i4th,  intelligence  of  the  sur 
render  of  Lee  reached  him,  and  a  correspondence  was 
opened  between  him  and  Johnston  for  the  disbandment  of 
the  rebel  army,  and  to  propose  a  basis  of  peace,  subject  to 
the  approval  of  the  President.  The  terms  were  not 
approved.  On  the  24th,  General  Grant  arrived  at  the  head 
quarters  of  Sherman,  and  immediately  Sherman  notified 
Johnston  that  the  terms  were  disapproved,  and  a  demand  was 
made  for  the  surrender  of  his  army.  A  meeting  between 
Sherman  and  Johnston  was  had  on  the  26th  of  April,  which 
resulted  in  the  surrender  of  Johnston  and  his  army,  on  the 
same  terms  substantially  as  those  which  Lee  had  accepted. 
The  surrender  of  all  the  organized  rebel  forces  everywhere 
soon  followed.  On  the  nth  of  May,  Jefferson  Davis,  fleeing 
in  disguise,  was  captured  in  Georgia. 

After  the  meeting  of  the  President  with  Grant  and  Sher 
man,  before  described,  Lincoln,  anxious  to  be  near  the  scene 
of  action,  where  he  could  keep  in  constant  communication 
with  Grant,  remained  at  City  Point.  General  Grant  tele 
graphed  to  him  from  day  to  day  and  hour  to  hour  the  pro 
gress  of  the  movements,  and  these  despatches  were  for 
warded  by  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  Secretary  of  War  at  Washing 
ton,  and  by  him  to  the  exulting  people  of  the  loyal  states. 
The  brilliant  and  decisive  successes  of  the  army  filled  the 
nation  with  joy  and  gratitude. 

When,  on  the  morning  of  the  4th  of  April,  the  Union 
troops  took  possession  of  Richmond,  they  found  a  terrific 
fire  raging,  which  had  been  caused  by  the  rebels  setting  fire 
to  the  great  tobacco  warehouses,  ordnance  foundries,  and 


VICTORY  AND  DEATH.  427 

other  public  property,  which  they  had  burned  to  prevent  its 
falling  into  the  hands  of  the  Union  army.  These  were 
destroyed,  and  with  them,  before  the  fire  could  be  extin 
guished,  fully  one-third  of  the  beautiful  city. 

On  the  day  of  its  capture,  the  President,  leading  his 
youngest  son  Thomas  (Tad)  by  the  hand,  and  accompanied 
by  Admiral  Porter  and  a  few  others,  visited  Richmond. 
Leading  his  son — then  twelve  years  old — he  walked  from 
the  wharf  near  Libby  prison  to  the  headquarters  of  General 
Weitzel,  which  had  been  the  residence  of  Jefferson  Davis, 
and  from  which  he  had  so  lately  fled.  The  coming  of  the 
President  had  been  unannounced,  but  the  news  of  his  pres 
ence  spread  through  the  city,  and  immediately  the  exulting 
negroes  came  running  from  every  direction  to  see  their 
deliverer.  They  danced,  shouted,  and  cried  for  joy;  for 
their  enthusiasm  was  uncontrollable.  He  held  a  brief  recep 
tion  in  the  room  lately  occupied  by  the  rebel  President,  took 
a  drive  about  the  town,  saw  that  the  fire  was  being  subdued, 
and  returned  the  same  evening  to  City  Point. 

On  the  Thursday  following,  with  Mrs.  Lincoln,  the  Vice- 
President,  and  several  senators  and  friends,  he  again  visited 
Richmond.  On  this  occasion  he  was  called  upon  by  several 
prominent  citizens  of  Virginia,  anxious  to  learn  what  the 
policy  of  the  government  towards  them  would  be.  Without 
committing  himself  to  specific  details,  he  satisfied  them  that 
his  policy  would  be  magnanimous,  forgiving,  and  generous. 
He  told  these  Virginians  they  must  learn  loyalty  and  devo 
tion  to  the  nation.  They  need  not  love  Virginia  less,  but 
they  must  love  the  republic  more. 

On  the  Qth  of  April,  the  President  returned  to  Washing 
ton,  and  he  had  scarcely  settled  at  the  White  House  before 
the  news  of  Lee's  surrender  reached  him.  Robert  T.  Lin 
coln,  his  oldest  son,  was  on  the  staff  of  General  Grant,  and 
in  the  field  at  the  front.  When  the  intelligence  of  Lee's  sur 
render  reached  the  President,  no  language  can  express  the 
joy  and  gratitude  to  Almighty  God  which  filled  his  heart 
and  that  of  the  people. 


.428  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

On  the  evening  of  the  nth,  a  great  crowd,  exultant  and 
happy,  went  to  the  White  House  to  congratulate  him,  and 
with  him  rejoice  over  the  triumph.  Again  his  tall  form  stood 
at  the  window  of  the  Executive  Mansion,  and  looked  out  on 
the  happy  multitude.  How  often  during  the  past  four  years 
had  he  stood  there.  In  times  of  disaster  and  of  danger, 
when  all  was  dark  and  uncertain,  how  often  had  he  cheered 
and  encouraged  his  hearers  with  words  of  hope  and  con 
fidence;  how  often  had  he  cheered  the  soldiers  marching  to 
the  field.  Now  the  great  work  was  done.  The  rebellion 
was  crushed,  and  throughout  the  republic  there  was  not  a 
slave.  To  him,  more  than  to  any  other;  to  him  more  than 
to  all  others;  to  him  under  God  were  these  grand  results 
due.  But  there  was  no  selfish  exultation.  Modest,  just,  and 
grateful  to  others,  he  said:  "  We  meet  this  evening  in 
gladness  of  heart.  The  surrender  of  the  insurgent  army 
gives  hopes  of  a  righteous  and  speedy  peace.  *  *  *  * 
In  the  midst  of  this,  He  from  whom  all  blessings  flow 
must  not  be  forgotten.  *  *  *  I  was  near  the  front,  * 
*  *  but  no  part  of  the  honor  for  plan  or  execution  is 
mine.  To  General  Grant,  his  skillful  officers  and  brave  men, 
all  belongs."  l 

From  the  nth  to  the  i4th  were  eventful,  memorable 
days.  The  surrender  of  all  the  rebel  armies  followed  in 
rapid  succession.  The  whole  country,  every  city,  town,  vil 
lage,  and  neighborhood,  was  intoxicated  with  joy.  All  the 
houses,  even  the  houses  of  mourning,  were  bright  with  Union 
flags.  Every  window  in  every  home  was  illuminated.  Bells 
were  rung  and  salutes  fired.  Bands  of  music  played,  patri 
otic  songs  were  sung,  and  the  voice  of  praise  and  thanks 
giving  to  Almighty  God  went  up  from  every  house  of  wor 
ship,  and  from  every  home  and  fireside.  No  one  was  more 
joyous  and  happy  than  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  dark  clouds  had 
disappeared.  Full  of  hope  and  happiness,  with  the  con 
sciousness  of  great  difficulties  overcome,  of  great  duties 
well  and  successfully  performed,  his  heart  was  filled,  and 

1.  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  609. 


VICTORY  AND  DEATH.  429 

now  visions  of  days  of  peace  and  happiness  were  rising 
before  him.  He  was  considering  plans  of  reconciliation; 
how  he  could  best  bind  up  and  heal  the  wounds  of  the  whole 
country,  and  how  obliterate  the  scars  of  war  and  restore 
good  feeling  and  friendship  to  every  section.  There  was  in 
his  heart  no  bitterness,  no  desire  for  revenge.  He  wished 
to  frighten  the  leading  rebels  out  of  the  country,  that  there 
might  be  no  executions. 

On  the  morning  of  the  i4th,  his  son  Robert,  just  returned 
from  the  front,  where  he  had  witnessed  the  surrender  of 
Lee,  breakfasted  with  his  father.  The  family  passed  a 
happy  hour  together,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  listening  to  the 
details  of  the  events  witnessed  by  Robert.  After  breakfast, 
the  President  spent  an  hour  with  Mr.  Speaker  Colfax.  Then 
followed  a  happy  meeting  and  exchange  of  congratulations 
with  a  party  of  Illinois  friends.  At  12  M.  there  was  a  meet 
ing  of  the  Cabinet,  at  which  General  Grant  was  present,  and 
all  remarked  the  hopeful,  happy  spirits  of  the  President,  and 
his  kindly  disposition  towards  those  lately  in  arms  against 
him.  While  waiting  for  the  Secretary  of  War,  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  observed  to  look  very  grave,  and  said  :  "  Gentlemen, 
something  serious  is  going  to  happen.  I  have  had  a  strange 
dream,  and  have  a  presentiment  such  as  I  have  had  several 
times  before,  and  always  just  before  some  important  event. 
But,"  he  added  abruptly  as  Mr.  Stanton  came  in,  "  let  us 
•proceed  to  business." 

After  the  Cabinet  meeting  he  went  to  drive  with  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  expressing  a  wish  that  no  one  should  accompany 
them,  and  evidently  desiring  to  converse  alone  with  her.1 
"  Mary,"  said  he,  "  we  have  had  a  hard  time  of  it  since 
we  came  to  Washington,  but  the  war  is  over,  and  with  God's 
blessing  we  may  hope  for  four  years  of  peace  and  happi 
ness,  and  then  we  will  go  back  to  Illinois  and  pass  the  rest 
of  our  lives  in  quiet."  He  spoke  of  his  old  Springfield 
home,  and  recollections  of  his  early  days,  his  little  brown 
cottage,  the  law  office,  the  court  room,  the  green  bag  for  his 

1.  I  state  this  conversation  from  memory,  as  related  by  Mrs.  Lincoln. 


430  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

briefs  and  law  papers,  his  adventures  when  riding  the 
circuit,  came  thronging  back  to  him.  The  tension  under 
which  he  had  for  so  long  been  kept  was  removed,  and  he 
was  like  a  boy  out  of  school.  "We  have  laid  by,"  said  he 
to  his  wife,  "  some  money,  and  during  this  term  we  will  try 
and  save  up  more,  but  shall  not  have  enough  to  support  us. 
We  will  go  back  to  Illinois,  and  I  will  open  a  law-office  at 
Springfield  or  Chicago,  and  practice  law,  and  at  least  do 
enough  to  help  give  us  a  livelihood."  Such  were  the  dreams, 
the  day-dreams  of  Lincoln,  the  last  day  of  his  life.1  In  imagi 
nation  he  was  again  in  his  prairie  home,  among  his  law 
books,  and  in  the  courts  with  his  old  friends.  A  picture  of 
a  prairie  farm  on  the  banks  of  the  Sangamon  or  the  Rock 
River  rose  before  him,  and  once  more  the  plough  and  the  axe 
were  to  become  as  familiar  to  his  hands  as  in  the  days  of  his 
youth. 

In  the  early  evening  he  had  another  interview  with  Mr.  Col- 
fax,  and  with  George  Ashmun,  the  president  of  the  convention 
at  Chicago  which  had  nominated  him  for  the  Presidency.  It 
had  been  announced  by  the  newspapers  that  he  and  General 
Grant  would  attend  Ford's  theatre  that  evening.  General 
Grant  was  prevented  by  some  other  engagement  from  attend 
ing,  and  Mr.  Lincoln,  though  for  some  reason  reluctant  to 
go  that  night,  was  persuaded  to  attend,  that  the  people 
might  not  be  disappointed.  Mr.  Colfax  walked  from  the 
parlor  to  the  door  with  him,  and  there  bade  him  good-bye, 
declining  an  invitation  to  accompany  him  to  the  play.  On 

1.  If  he  had  lived  and  carried  out  these  plans,  what  would  have  been  his  future  ? 
"Would  he  have  passed,  like  other  Ex-Presidents  and  great  soldiers  and  statesmen. 
Into  comparative  obscurity  ?  The  proverbial  ingratitude  of  republics  is  verified  by 
our  own,  not  towards  the  pensioned  private  soldier,  but  to  the  leaders.  In  almost 
every  state  to-day  are  living  men  who  have  rendered  the  country  inestimable  service, 
earning  their  living  in  pursuit  of  various  branches  of  industry,  unknown,  unappre 
ciated,  and  nearly  forgotten.  How  differently  great  public  services  are  rewarded  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  There,  titles  and  wealth  are  sure  to  follow  great  pub 
lic  service  in  civil  and  military  life.  Blenheim  Palace  and  the  Dukedom  of  Marlbor- 
ough  were  very  substantial  rewards  for  the  victory  of  Blenheim.  Apsley  House,  and 
its  contents,  and  the  title  of  Duke  of  Wellington,  were  well  earned  by  the  conqueror 
of  Waterloo.  Would  Lincoln,  the  savior  of  his  country,  had  he  lived,  been  left  to 
earn  his  living  by  the  practice  of  a  nisi  prius  and  Supreme  Court  lawyer,  or  would 
the  republic  have  honored  him  and  itself  by  honors  and  wealth  ? 


VICTORY  AND  DEATH.  431 

the  steps  of  the  White  House,  just  as  he  was  stepping  into 
his  carnage,  the  author  met  him,  and  he  said  :  "  Excuse  me 
now.  I  am  going  to  the  theatre.  Come  and  see  me  in  the 
morning." 

From  the  time  of  his  election  to  his  death,  many  threats 
had  been  made  to  assassinate  him.  He  had  received  many 
letters  warning  him  against  assassination.  An  attempt  to 
murder  him  at  Baltimore,  in  1861,  would  undoubtedly  have 
been  made,  but  for  the  discovery  of  the  plot,  and  his  pass 
ing  through  that  city  without  the  knowledge  of  and  before 
the  time  expected  by  the  conspirators.  Lincoln  was  consti 
tutionally  brave,  and  assassination  is  a  crime  so  entirely  for 
eign  and  abhorrent  to  the  American  character,  that  he 
regarded  all  these  threats  as  idle  words,  and  his  friends 
could  never  induce  him  to  take  precautions.  He  walked 
unguarded  and  unconscious  of  danger  through  the  streets  of 
Richmond  on  the  day  of  its  capture. 

The  President,  Mrs.  Lincoln,  and  their  party,  reached  the 
theatre  at  nine  o'clock.  On  his  entry,  he  was  received  with 
acclamation.  As  he  reached  the  door  of  the  box  reserved 
for  him,  he  turned,  smiled,  and  bowed  his  acknowledgment 
of  the  greeting  which  welcomed  him,  and  then  followed 
Mrs.  Lincoln  into  the  box.  This  was  at  the  right  of  the 
stage,  and  not  many  feet  from  the  floor.  In  the  corner  near 
est  the  stage  sat  Miss  Harris,  a  daughter  of  Senator  Harris, 
of  New  York;  next  her  was  Mrs.  Lincoln,  Major  Rathbone 
being  seated  on  a  sofa  behind  the  ladies,  and  the  President 
nearest  the  door.  The  box  was  draped  and  festooned  with 
the  national  colors.  The  play  was  the  "  American  Cousin." 

It  is  painful  to  have  to  mention  the  name  of  the  man  who 
had  attained  some  distinction  in  the  representation  of  the 
mimic  tragedies  of  the  drama ;  the  name  of  one  henceforth 
to  be  more  infamous  than  any  of  the  villains  whose  parts  he 
had  assumed,  and  which  the  genius  of  Shakspeare  had  con 
ceived.  John  Wilkes  Booth,  the  assassin,  visited  the  theatre 
behind  the  scenes  and  saw  the  President  sitting  in  the  box. 
He  had  a  fleet  horse  in  the  alley  behind  the  building,  all 


432  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

saddled  and  ready  to  aid  him  in  his  escape,  and  saw  that  the 
door  to  this  alley  was  open.  The  arrangements  for  the  mur 
der  being  completed,  at  10:30  p.  M.  a  pistol  shot,  startling 
and  sharp,  was  heard,  and  a  man  holding  a  dagger  dripping 
with  blood  leaped  from  the  President's  box  to  the  stage, 
exclaiming:  "  Sic  semper  tyrannis  ;  the  South  is  avenged." 
As  the  assassin  struck  the  floor  of  the  stage  he  fell  on  his 
knee,  breaking  a  bone,  the  spur  on  his  boot  having  caught  in 
the  folds  of  the  flag  as  he  leaped.  Instantly  rising,  he 
brandished  his  bloody  dagger,  darted  across  the  stage 
through  the  door  he  had  left  open,  sprung  upon  his  horse, 
and  galloped  away.  Major  Rathbone,  at  the  sound  of  the 
pistol,  and  as  the  assassin  rushed  towards  the  stage,  had 
attempted  to  seize  him,  and  received  a  severe  cut  in  the  arm. 
The  audience  and  actors,  startled  and  stupefied  with  horror, 
were  for  a  few  seconds  spell-bound.  Some  one  then  cried 
out,  "John  Wilkes  Booth!"  and  the  audience  realized 
that  the  well-known  actor  had  been  the  author  of  the  deed. 
Booth  had  passed  around  to  the  front  of  the  theatre,  entered, 
passed  to  the  President's  box,  gone  in  at  the  open  and 
unguarded  door,  and,  stealing  noiselessly  up  behind  the 
President,  who  was  intent  upon  the  play,  had  placed  his 
pistol  close  to  the  back  of  the  head  of  Mr.  Lincoln  at 
the  base  of  the  brain,  and  fired.  The  ball  penetrated  the 
brain,  the  President  fell  forward  unconscious  and  mortally 
wounded.  ! 

1.  The  following  is  the  sworn  statement  of  the  actor  on  the  stage  at  the  moment: 
"  I  was  playing  '  Asa  Trenchard  '  in  the  '  American  Cousin.'  The  '  old  lady '  of  the 
theatre  had  just  gone  off  the  stage,  and  I  was  answering  her  exit  speech  when  I 
heard  the  shot  fired.  I  turned,  looked  up  at  the  President's  box,  heard  the  man 
exclaim,  'Sic  semper  tyrannis^  saw  him  jump  from  the  box,  seize  the  flag  on  the 
staff,  and  drop  to  the  stage;  he  slipped  when  he  gained  the  stage,  but  he  got  upon  his 
feet  in  a  moment,  brandished  a  large  knife,  saying,  '  The  South  shall  be  free,'  turned 
his  face  in  the  direction  I  stood,  and  I  recognized  him  as  John  Wilkes  Booth.  He  ran 
towards  me,  and  I,  seeing  the  knife,  thought  I  was  the  one  he  was  after,  and  ran  off 
the  stage  and  up  a  flight  of  stairs.  He  made  his  escape  out  of  a  door  directly  in  the 
rear  of  the  theatre,  mounted  a  horse  and  rode  off.  The  above  all  occurred  in  the 
space  of  a  quarter  of  a  minute,  and  at  the  time  I  did  not  know  the  President  was  shot, 
although,  if  I  had  tried  to  stop  him,  he  would  have  stabbed  me." 

Major  Rathbone  testified  :  "The  distance  between  the  President,  as  he  sat,  and 
the  door,  was  about  four  or  five  feet.  The  door,  according  to  the  recollection  of  thi& 


VICTORY  AND  DEATH.  43  3 

No  words  can  describe  the  horror  and  the  anguish  of  Mrs- 
Lincoln.  Her  heart  was  broken,  and  her  mind  so  shattered 
by  the  shock  that  she  was  never  quite  herself  thereafter. 
When  told  that  her  husband  must  die,  she  prayed  for  death 
herself.  The  insensible  body  was  moved  across  the  street 
to  the  house  of  Mr.  Peterson.  Robert  T.  Lincoln,  personal 
friends,  and  members  of  the  Cabinet,  soon  arrived  and  filled 
the  rooms.  The  strong  constitution  of  the  President  strug 
gled  with  death  until  twenty-two  minutes  past  seven  of  the 
next  morning,  when  his  heart  ceased  to  beat.  It  would  be 
idle  to  attempt  to  describe  the  agony  of  that  fearful  night. 
The  manly  efforts  of  the  son  to  control  his  own  suffering, 
that  he  might  soothe  and  comfort  his  mother,  can  never  be 
forgotten.  At  the  rising  of  the  sun  on  the  morning  of  the 
1 5th,  the  remains  of  the  President  were  borne  back  to  the 
White  House.  *  The  assassin  was  pursued,  overtaken,  and, 
on  the  2ist  of  April,  refusing  to  surrender,  he  was  shot  by  a 
soldier  named  Boston  Corbett. 

On  the  same  night  of  the  murder  of  the  President,  ac 
complices  of  Booth  attempted  to  kill  the  Secretary  of  State, 
Mr.  Seward.  He  had  been  confined  to  his  house  by  severe 
injuries  received  from  being  thrown  from  his  carriage. 
He  was  fearfully  wounded,  and  his  life  was  saved  by  the 
heroic  efforts  of  his  sons  and  daughter,  and  a  nurse  named 
Robinson.  Frederick  Seward,  his  son,  in  attempting  to  pre 
vent  the  entrance  of  the  ruffian  into  his  father's  room,  was 

deponent,  was  not  closed  during  the  evening.  When  the  second  scene  of  the  third  act 
was  being  performed,  and  while  the  deponent  was  intently  observing  the  proceedings 
upon  the  stage,  with  his  back  towards  the  door,  he  heard  the  discharge  of  a  pistol 
behind  him,  and  looking  around  saw,  through  the  smoke,  a  man  between  the  door 
and  the  President.  *  *  This  deponent  instantly  sprang  towards  him  and  seized  him ; 
he  wrested  himself  from  the  grasp  and  made  a  violent  thrust  at  the  breast  of  depo 
nent  with  a  large  knife.  Deponent  parried  the  blow  by  striking  It  up,  and  received  a 
wound  several  inches  deep  in  his  left  arm,  between  the  elbow  and  the  shoulder.  The 
orifice  of  the  wound  is  about  an  Inch  and  a  half  in  length,  and  extends  upwards 
towards  the  shoulder  several  inches.  The  man  rushed  to  the  front  of  the  box,  and 
deponent  endeavored  to  seize  him  again,  but  only  caught  his  clothes  as  he  was  leap 
ing  over  the  railing  of  the  box." 

1.  The  author  was  one  of  the  sad  procession  which  followed  the  corpse  to  the 
Executive  Mansion. 
28 


434 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


struck  on  the  head  with  a  pistol,  and  his  skull  fractured. 
Some  of  the  accomplices  of  Booth,  including  Mrs.  Surratt, 
were  arrested,  convicted,  and  hung,  but  whether  they  were 
the  tools  and  instruments  of  more  guilty  instigators,  has 
never  been  clearly  proved. 

Andrew  Johnson,  Vice-President,  was  immediately,  on 
the  morning  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  death,  sworn  into  office  as 
President.  The  terrible  intelligence  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  death 
was  early  on  the  morning  of  the  i5th  borne  by  telegraph  to 
every  part  of  the  republic.  Coming  in  the  midst  of  univer 
sal  rejoicing  over  the  fall  of  Richmond  and  the  surrender 
of  Lee,  no  language  can  adequately  express  the  horror  and 
grief  of  the  people.  A  whole  nation  shouting  for  joy  was  in 
one  moment  struck  dumb  with  horror,  and  the  next  bathed 
in  tears.  Persons  who  had  not  heard  of  the  event,  entering 
crowded  cities,  were  appalled  by  the  strange  aspect  of  the 
mourning  people.  All  business,  by  common  impulse,  was 
instantly  suspended,  and  gloom  and  grief  were  on  every  face. 
The  national  flag  which  had  been  floating  in  triumph  over 
every  roof,  every  public  building,  spire,  and  mast,  was 
lowered  to  half  mast,  and  before  the  sun  went  down,  the 
people,  by  a  common  impulse,  each  family  by  itself,  began 
to  drape  their  houses  in  mourning,  so  that  before  dark 
ness  closed  over  the  land,  every  house  was  shrouded  in 
black.  If  every  family  in  the  republic  had  lost  its  first 
born,  the  emblems  of  grief  could  hardly  have  been  more 
universal.  There  were  none  whose  grief  was  more  demon 
strative  than  that  of  the  soldiers  and  freedmen.  The  vast 
armies  not  yet  disbanded  looked  upon  and  loved  Lincoln  as  a 
father.  They  knew  that  his  heart  had  been  with  them  in  all 
their  marches  and  battles,  and  in  all  their  sufferings. 
Grief  and  vengeance  filled  all  their  hearts.  But  the  poor 
negroes  wept  and  mourned  over  a  loss  which  they  instinc 
tively  felt  was  irreparable.  On  the  Sunday  following  his 
death,  the  people  gathered  in  every  place  of  public  worship, 
and  mingled  their  tears. 

On  Monday,  the  lyth,  a  meeting  of  the  members  of  Con- 


VICTORY  AND  DEATH.  435 

gress  then  in  Washington  was  held  at  the  Capitol  to  arrange 
for  the  funeral.  A  committee  of  one  member  from  each 
state  and  territory,  and  the  entire  delegation  from  Illinois,  was 
appointed  to  attend  the  remains  to  Springfield.  The  fact 
was  recalled  that  a  vault  had  been  prepared  under  the  dome 
of  the  Capitol  for  the  remains  of  Washington,  which  had 
never  been  used,  because  the  Washington  family  and  Virginia 
desired  that  the  body  of  the  father  of  his  country  should 
rest  at  Mount  Vernon.  It  was  now  suggested  that  it  would  be 
peculiarly  appropriate  that  the  body  of  Lincoln  should  be 
placed  under  the  Capitol  of  the  republic  he  had  saved.  The 
family  of  Lincoln  would  have  consented  to  this,  but  the  gov 
ernor  of  Illinois,  her  senators,  and  others,  were  so  urgent 
that  the  remains  should  be  taken  to  his  old  home,  that  it  was 
finally  decided  that  this  should  be  done. 

A  short  time  before  his  death,  on  the  visit  of  the  Presi 
dent  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  to  City  Point  and  Richmond  before 
spoken  of,  as  they  were  taking  a  drive  on  the  banks  of  James 
River,  they  came  to  an  old  country  graveyard.  It  was  a 
retired  place,  shaded  with  trees,  and  early  spring  flowers  were 
opening  on  nearly  every  grave.  It  was  so  quiet  and  attrac 
tive  that  they  stopped  the  carriage  and  walked  through  it. 
Mr.  Lincoln  seemed  thoughtful  and  impressed.  He  said: 
"  Mary,  you  are  younger  than  I.  You  will  survive  me. 
When  I  am  gone,  lay  my  remains  in  some  quiet  place  like 
this."  i 

The  funeral  took  place  on  Wednesday,  the  i9th,  and  the 
religious  services  were  held  in  the  east  room  of  the  Executive 
Mansion.  This  was  the  third  funeral  which  had  taken  place 
at  the  White  House,  while  occupied  by  the  family  of  Mr. 
Lincoln.  First,  that  of  Colonel  Ellsworth,  at  whose  death  the 
President  was  deeply  grieved;  then  that  of  his  own  son  Will 
iam,  whom  Mr.  Lincoln  idolized;  and  now  that  of  the  Presi- 

1.  Mrs.  Lincoln  told  this  incident  to  the  author  in  October,  1874.  She  was  speak 
ing  of  his  grave  at  Oak  Ridge.  Some  of  his  Illinois  friends  had  desired  that  he  should 
be  buried  near  the  State  House,  that  his  monument  should  be  near  the  Capitol.  She 
said  she  preferred  Oak  Ridge,  because  it  was  more  retired,  and  she  gave  the  above 
incident  as  expressing  his  own  wishes  on  the  subject. 


436  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

dent.  The  services  were  solemn  and  touching.  The  new 
President,  the  Cabinet,  the  Chief  Justice  and  his  associates, 
General  Grant,  Admiral  Farragut,  senators  and  members 
of  Congress,  the  diplomatic  corps,  a  great  number  of  mili 
tary  and  naval  officers,  and  citizens  from  every  part  of  the 
country  attended.  After  the  religious  ceremonies,  the  body 
was  taken  to  the  rotunda  of  the  Capitol,  tenderly  guarded  by 
sad  and  sorrowing  soldiers.  The  coffin  was  kept  constantly 
covered  with  a  profusion  of  sweet  spring  flowers,  while  the 
placid  face  was  exposed,  and  thousands  came  to  take  a  last 
look  before  the  remains  should  start  for  their  final  resting 
place  on  the  distant  prairies.  The  features  were  natural, 
gentle,  and  seemed  yet  to  express  the  Christ-like  sentiments 
which  he  had  uttered  from  the  colonnade  of  the  Capitol  in  his 
last  inaugural.  Non-commissioned  officers  of  the  Veteran 
Reserve  Corps  were  detailed  to  act  as  a  body-guard,  and 
major  generals  of  the  army  were  directed  to  attend  the  train 
and  keep  watch,  so  that  at  all  times  during  the  journey  the 
coffin  should  be  under  their  special  guardianship.  It  was 
ordered  that  the  funeral  train  should  take  nearly  the  same 
route  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  taken  when  he  came  from 
Springfield  to  Washington  to  enter  upon  his  duties  as  Presi 
dent. 

The  train  left  the  capital  on  Friday  the  2ist,  and  was  to 
halt  and  stay  for  a  short  time  at  Baltimore,  Philadelphia, 
New  York,  Albany,  Cleveland,  Columbus,  Indianapolis,  and 
Chicago,  and  thence  was  to  proceed  to  Springfield  ;  thus 
traversing  the  states  of  Maryland,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey, 
New  York,  Ohio,  and  Indiana,  to  Illinois.  It  was  one  long 
pilgrimage  of  sorrow.  The  people  of  every  state,  city,  town, 
village,  and  hamlet  came  with  uncovered  heads,  with  stream 
ing  eyes,  with  wreaths  of  flowers,  to  witness  the  passing 
train.  Minute  guns,  the  tolling  of  bells,  mournful  music, 
dirges,  draped  flags  at  half  mast,  with  black  hanging  from 
every  public  building  and  private  house,  marked  this  long 
line  of  two  thousand  miles.  Nowhere  were  the  manifesta 
tions  of  grief  more  impressive  than  at  Baltimore,  and  espe- 


VICTORY  AND  DEATH.  437 

cially  from  the  negroes.  Their  coarse,  homely  features  were 
convulsed  with  a  grief  they  could  not  control,  and  sobs, 
cries,  and  tears  told  how  deeply  they  mourned  their  deliverer. 
At  Philadelphia,  the  remains  lay  in  state  in  old  Independ 
ence  Hall.  Four  years  before,  in  that  same  hall,  when  on 
his  way  to  the  capital,  he  had  declared  he  would  sooner  be 
.assassinated  than  give  up  the  principles  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence.  He  had  been  assassinated  because  of 
his  fidelity  to  those  principles.  The  old  historic  bell,  which 
had  rung  out  the  peal  announcing  the  adoption  of  the  Dec 
laration  of  Independence,  and  on  which  had  been  engraved 
the  words  :  "  Proclaim  liberty  throughout  the  land  to  all  the 
inhabitants  thereof,"  stood  at  the  head  of  the  coffin  of 
Lincoln— who  had  made  and  maintained  that  proclamation. 
The  procession  reached  New  York  on  the  24th,  and  remained 
until  the  25th.  Every  house,  from  pavement  to  roof,  all  the 
•way  from  the  Battery  to  Central  Park,  was  draped  in  black. 
Here  came  the  venerable  old  soldier,  General  Scott,  to  take 
his  last  look  at  the  President  whose  inauguration  he  had 
helped  to  secure. 

As  the  train  passed  up  the  Hudson  towards  Albany,  near 
one  of  the  towns  lying  in  the  shadow  of  the  mountains,  a 
tableau  of  picturesque  beauty  had  been  arranged.  Just  as 
the  evening  sun  was  sinking  behind  the  Kaatskills,  the  train 
was  seen  slowly  approaching.  A  great  crowd  had  gathered 
near  the  banks  of  the  river.  An  open  space  encircled  with 
evergreens  was  seen,  and,  as  the  train  came  still  nearer,  sad, 
slow,  melancholy  music  was  heard,  and  a  beautiful  woman 
representing  Liberty  was  discovered  kneeling  over  the  grave 
of  Lincoln,  with  a  crown  of  laurels,  and  the  flag  draped  in 
mourning. 

And  thus  the  sad  procession  moved  on,  reaching  Chicago 
on  the  first  of  May.  Here  every  one  had  personally  known 
Mr.  Lincoln.  Here  he  had  made  his  speeches  to  courts  and 
juries.  Here  he  had  often  debated  with  his  great  rival, 
Douglas,  and  here  he  had  been  nominated  for  President. 
Here,  from  all  parts  of  Illinois  now  thronged  his  old  friends 


438  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  neighbors.  Here,  as  everywhere,  mottoes  expressive 
of  the  grief  of  the  people  were  everywhere  displayed.  On 
the  3d  of  May,  the  funeral  train  reached  Springfield,  and  his 
remains  were  taken  to  the  State  House,  which  had  so  often 
echoed  with  his  eloquence.  Over  the  door  of  the  entrance, 
in  allusion  to  the  last  words  spoken  by  him  when  he  bade 
his  neighbors  good-bye,  were  the  lines: 

"  He  left  us  borne  up  by  our  prayers; 
He  returns  embalmed  in  our  tears." 

The  whole  world  hastened  to  express  sympathy  with  the 
American  people.  From  Windsor  Castle  and  from  the  cot 
tage  of  the  humblest  day-laborer,  came  the  voice  of  sorrow. 
England's  widowed  queen,  under  her  own  hand,  expressed 
the  deepest  sympathy  with  the  widow  at  the  White  House. 
The  English  speaking  race,  from  every  part  of  its  magnifi 
cent  empire,  from  Parliament  and  Westminster  Abbey,  and 
from  India,  and  Australia,  Canada,  and  the  Islands  of  the 
Sea,  everywhere  came  forward  with  the  expression  of  its 
profound  regret.  Indeed,  all  nations  and  all  peoples  vied 
with  each  other  in  the  expression  of  their  sorrow.  These 
utterances  were  communicated  to  our  State  department. 
Mr.  Seward  felicitously  called  them  "  The  Tribute  of  the 
Nations  to  Abraham  Lincoln."  They  were  printed,  and 
constitute  a  quarto  volume  of  nearly  a  thousand  pages, 
unique  in  its  character,  and  a  tribute  never  before  in  any 
age  paid  to  any  man. 

His  body  was  taken  to  Oak  Ridge  Cemetery,  and  there, 
surrounded  by  his  old  friends  and  neighbors,  his  clients  and 
constituents,  among  whom  was  here  and  there  an  old  Clary 
Grove  companion — there,  with  the  nation  and  the  world  for 
his  mourners — he  was  buried. 

He  left,  as  has  been  stated,  a  heart-broken  widow,  a 
woman  whose  intellect  was  shattered  by  a  shock  so  awful 
as  scarcely  to  have  had  a  parallel  in  history.  For  a  time 
she  was  beside  herself  with  grief.  She  so  far  lost  the  control 
of  her  mind  that  she  dwelt  constantly  on  the  incidents  of  the 


VICTORY  AND  DEATH. 


439 


last  day  of  her  husband's  life,  and  she  lost  the  ability,  by 
any  effort  of  her  will,  to  think  of  other  and  less  painful 
things.1 

As  time  passed  she  partly  recovered,  and  her  friends 
hoped  that  change  of  scene  and  new  faces  would  bring  her 
back  to  a  more  sound  and  healthful  mental  condition.  But 
the  death  of  her  son  Thomas,  to  whom  she  was  fondly 
attached,  made  her  still  worse.  He  died  at  Chicago,  July 
i5th,  1871,  and  after  this  bereavement  she  became  still 
more  morbid,  and  from  that  time,  Mrs.  Lincoln,  in  the  judg 
ment  of  her  most  intimate  friends,  was  never  entirely 
responsible  for  her  conduct.  She  was  peculiar  and  eccen 
tric,  and  had  various  hallucinations.  These  at  one  time 
assumed  such  a  form,  that  her  devoted  son  and  her  family 
friends  thought  it  safer  and  more  wise  that  she  should  be 
under  treatment  for  her  physical  and  mental  maladies. 
She  was  removed  to  the  quiet  of  the  country,  where  she 
received  every  possible  kindness  and  attention,  and  in  a  few 
months  so  far  improved  that  her  elder  sister,  Mrs.  Ninian 
Edwards,  took  her  to  her  pleasant  home  in  Springfield, 
where  she  lingered  until  her  death,  which  took  place  on  July 
i6th,  1882. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  has  been  treated  harshly — nay,  most  cruelly 
abused  and  misrepresented  by  a  portion  of  the  press.  That 
love  of  scandal  and  of  personality,  unfortunately  too  general, 
induced  reporters  to  hang  around  her  doors,  to  dog  her 
steps,  to  chronicle  and  exaggerate  her  impulsive  words,  her 
indiscretions,  and  her  eccentricities.  There  is  nothing  in 
American  history  so  unmanly,  so  devoid  of  every  chivalric 
impulse,  as  the  treatment  of  this  poor,  broken  hearted  woman, 

1.  The  author  called  upon  her  a  few  days  after  her  husband's  death,  and  she  nar 
rated  to  him  the  incidents  of  the  last  day  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  life.  The  next  day,  and  the 
next,  and  every  time  the  author  met  her,  she  would  go  over  these  painful  details, 
until  she  would  be  convulsed  with  sorrow.  When  entreated  not  to  speak  on  such 
a  painful  subject,  and  when  an  effort  was  made  to  divert  her  to  others  less  sad,  she 
would  apparently  try  to  turn  her  thoughts  elsewhere,  but  directly  and  unconsciously, 
she  would  return  to  these  incidents,  forgetful  that  she  had  told  them  to  her  visitor 
again  and  again,  and  she  apparently  had  lost  all  power  of  choice  in  the  subjects  of  her 
conversation. 


440  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

whose  reason  was  shattered  by  the  great  tragedy  of  her  life. 
One  would  have  supposed  it  to  be  sufficient  to  secure  the 
forbearance,  the  charitable  construction,  or  the  silence  of  the 
press,  to  remember  that  she  was  the  widow  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  When  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  was  uttering  his 
^coarse  and  idle  jests  concerning  Margaret  of  Anjou,  the 
Earl  of  Oxford  rebuked  and  silenced  him  by  saying  :  "  My 
Lord,  whatever  may  have  been  the  defects  of  my  mistress, 
she  is  in  distress,  and  almost  in  desolation."  * 

The  abuse  which  a  portion  of  the  American  press  so 
pitilessly  poured  upon  the  head  of  Mary  Lincoln,  recalls  that 
splendid  outburst  of  eloquence  on  the  part  of  Burke,  when, 
speaking  of  the  Queen  of  France,  he  said:  "Little  did  I 
dream  that  I  should  live  to  see  such  disasters  fall  upon  her 
in  a  nation  of  gallant  men  ;  a  nation  of  men  of  honor,  cava 
liers.  I  thought  ten  thousand  swords  must  have  leaped 
from  their  scabbards  to  avenge  even  a  look  that  threatened 
her  with  insult.  But  the  age  of  chivalry  has  gone."  Charles 
Sumner  was  true  to  the  widow  of  his  friend  to  the  last. 
Largely  through  his  influence,  Congress  passed  a  law  giving 
to  Mrs.  Lincoln  a  pension,  and  conferring  upon  her  the 
franking  privilege  for  life. 

1.  Sir  Walter  Scott's  "  Anne  of  Geierstein." 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

CONCLUSION. 

THOSE  who  have  read  these  pages  thus  far,  have  obtained 
the  means  of  forming  a  more  correct  judgment  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  than  can  be  obtained  from  any  attempt  at  descrip 
tion  or  word  painting.  He  can  be  best  studied  and  under 
stood  from  his  speeches,  writings,  acts,  and  conduct.  And  yet 
while  conscious  of  hTs  Inability  to  do  justice  to  his  great  sub 
ject,  the  author,  who  knew  him  from  early  manhood  to  his 
death,  at  the  bar,  on  the  stump,  in  private  and  in  public  life, 
cannot  forbear  the  attempt  to  sketch  and  portray  him  as 
he  saw  and  knew  him. 

Physically,  as  has  been  stated,  he  was  a  tall,  spare  man, 
with  large  bones,  and  towering  up  to  six  feet  and  four 
inches  in  height.  He  leaned  forward,  and  stooped  as  he 
walked.  He  was  very  athletic,  with  long  limbs,  large  hands 
and  feet,  and  of  great  physical  strength.  There  was  no  grace 
in  his  movements,  but  an  expression  of  awkwardness,  com 
bined  with  force  and  vigor.  By  nature  he  was  diffident, 
and  when  in  crowds,  not  speaking  and  conscious  of  being 
observed,  he  seemed  to  shrink  with  bashfulness.  When  he 
spoke  or  listened,  he  immediately  became  absorbed  in  the 
subject,  and  all  appearances  of  self-consciousness  left  him. 
His  forehead  was  broad  and  high,  his  hair  was  rather  stiff 
and  coarse,  and  nearly  black,  his  eye-brows  heavy,  his  eyes 
dark  grey,  clear,  very  expressive,  and  varying  with  every 
mood,  now  sparkling  with  humor  and  fun,  then  flashing 
with  wit ;  stern  with  indignation  at  wrong  and  injustice,  then 
kind  and  genial,  and  then  again  dreamy  and  melancholy,  and 

441 


442  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

at  times  with  that  almost  superhuman  sadness  which  it  has 
been  said  is  the  sign  and  seal  of  those  who  are  to  be  martyrs. 
His  nose  was  large,  clearly  defined,  and  well  shaped;  his  cheek 
bones  high  and  projecting.  His  mouth  was  large,  but  indi 
cated  firmness  and  decision.  Ordinarily,  his  manner  and 
greeting  to  his  friends  was  most  cordial,  kind,  and  familiar. 
The  glance  of  his  eye,  the  genial  smile  on  his  face,  the 
friendly  tone,  the  hearty  grasp  of  the  hand,  all  indicated  a 
man  brotherly  to  his  associates.  He  would  have  been  pointed 
out  in  any  crowd  as  a  man  from  the  Northwest.  There  is 
expression  and  character  in  handwriting.  Lincoln's  was 
plain,  clear,  and  simple,  as  legible  as  that  of  Washington,  but, 
unlike  Washington's,  it  was  without  ornament.  He  was  in 
one  sense  "  the  truest  gentleman  that  ever  lived."  Awkward, 
sometimes  unconventional,  he  was  always  just,  unselfish, 
brave,  and  true  ;  to  the  weak  and  to  his  inferiors,  always  con 
siderate,  gentle,  and  respectful.  Neither  at  the  bar,  nor  in 
public  life,  was  he  ever  charged  with  anything  dishonest,  or 
false,  or  tricky,  but  he  was  always  open,  manly,  sincere. 
The  ruggedness  of  a  rude  age  and  a  very  imperfect  educa 
tion  was  never  entirely  obliterated,  but  he  became  a  very 
intelligent  and  well  informed  man,  and  with  the  roughness 
of  his  early  years  there  was  blended  a  homely  integrity,  sim 
plicity,  and  honesty,  apparent  in  all  the  events  of  his  life. 
He  was  the  most  magnanimous  of  men,  always  just  to  those 
who  injured  or  sought  to  injure  him  ;  and  if  he  ever  did  an 
injustice,  no  one  was  so  ready  to  make  reparation.  He  was 
a  most  faithful  friend,  and  most  affectionate  in  all  his  fam 
ily  relations.  To  his  children  he  was  warmly  devoted. 

The  tenderness  of  his  heart  was  apparent  in  all  the 
actions  of  his  life.  He  loved,  and  trusted,  and  confided  in 
the  people  to  a  degree  rarely  known  in  a  statesman.  He  had 
faith  in  the  common  every-day  folk,  with  a  yearning  for  their 
happiness  almost  paternal.  The  people  seemed  to  feel 
instinctively  how  thoroughly  he  trusted  them,  and  they 
revered  and  trusted  him  in  turn.  He  was  ever  loyal  to  them, 
and  they  to  him.  Some  have  doubted  whether  he  would 


CONCLUSION.  443 

have  had  this  confident  faith,  if  it  had  been  his  fortune  to 
live  in  great  cities  and  become  familiar  with  the  vicious  and 
criminal  classes  as  there  exhibited.  There  is  often  seen  in 
history  an  instinctive  sagacity  in  the  popular  appreciation  of 
character.  The  people  never  misunderstood,  nor  were  they 
ever  in  the  least  suspicious  of  Lincoln. 

In  the  endeavor  to  analyze  his  intellectual  and  moral 
character,  and  to  state  those  qualities  which  made  him  so 
great,  and  which  led  to  his  success,  his  love  of  truth  should 
be  mentioned.  His  mental  eye  was  clear  and  accurate.  The 
question  with  him  was  not  how  can  a  good  argument  be 
made  on  this  or  that  side,  but  what  is  the  truth.  He  had  a 
sagacity  which  seemed  almost  instinctive  in  sifting  the  true 
and  real  from  the  false.  Extraneous  circumstances,  color 
ing,  association,  the  accidents,  did  not  mislead  him.  His 
mind  ever  went  to  what  lawyers  call  the  gist  of  a  question. 
He  was  ever  seeking  the  right,  the  real,  and  the  true.  He 
had  a  passion  for  this.  He  analyzed  well,  was  exact,  care 
ful,  and  accurate  in  his  statements,  so  that  the  statement  was 
often  a  demonstration.  What  has  been  said  implies  not  only 
sound  judgment,  but  also  the  ability  to  present  clearly  the 
reasons  for  his  conclusions.  His  memory  was  strong,  ready, 
and  tenacious.  Although  his  reading  was  not  extensive,  yet 
his  memory  was  so  retentive  and  so  ready,  that  in  history, 
poetry,  and  in  general  literature,  few,  if  any,  marked  any 
deficiency.  As  an  illustration  of  the  powers  of  his  memory, 
may  be  related  the  following:  A  gentleman  called  at  the 
White  House  one  day,  and  introduced  to  him  two  officers 
serving  in  the  army,  one  a  Swede  and  the  other  a  Norwe 
gian.  Immediately  he  repeated,  to  their  delight,  a  poem  of 
some  eight  or  ten  verses  descriptive  of  Scandinavian  scenery, 
and  an  old  Norse  legend.  He  said  he  had  read  the  poem  in 
a  newspaper  some  years  before,  and  liked  it,  but  it  had 
passed  out  of  his  memory  until  their  visit  had  recalled  it. 

The  two  books  which  he  read  most  were  the  Bible  and 
Shakespeare.  With  these  he  was  perfectly  familiar.  From 
the  Bible,  as  has  before  been  stated,  he  quoted  frequently, 


444  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  he  read  it  daily,  while  Shakespeare  was  his  constant 
companion.  He  took  a  copy  with  him  almost  always  when 
traveling,  and  read  it  at  leisure  moments.  He  had  a  great 
love  for  poetry  and  eloquence,  and  his  taste  and  judgment 
were  excellent.  Next  to  Shakespeare  among  the  poets  was 
Burns.  There  was  a  lecture  of  his  upon  Burns  full  of 
favorite  quotations  and  sound  criticism.  He  sympathized 
thoroughly  with  the  poem,  "  A  Man's  a  Man  for  a'  That." 
He  was  very  fond  of  simple  ballads,  of  simple,  old-fashioned, 
sad,  and  plantive  music.  He  loved  to  hear  Scotch  ballads 
sung,  and  negro  melodies,  and  camp-meeting  hymns. 
Holmes's  poem  of  "  The  Last  Leaf  "  was  with  him  a  great 
favorite.  He  recited  and  read  works  of  poetry  and  elo 
quence  with  great  simplicity,  but  with  much  expression  and 
effect.  When  visiting  the  army,  or  on  a  journey  on  a 
steamer  or  by  rail,  as  well  as  when  at  home,  he  would  take 
up  his  copy  of  Shakespeare  and  would  often  read  aloud  to 
his  companions.  He  would  remark:  "  What  do  you  say 
now  to  a  scene  from  Hamlet  or  Macbeth  ?  "  And  then  he 
would  read  aloud  with  the  greatest  pleasure  scene  after  scene 
and  favorite  passages,  never  seeming  to  tire  of  the  enjoy 
ment.  On  the  last  Sunday  of  his  life,  as  he  was  on  the 
steamer  returning  from  his  visit  to  Richmond  and  City 
Point,  he  read  aloud  many  extracts  from  Shakespeare.1  He 
read  among  other  passages  the  following  from  Macbeth: 

"  Duncan  is  in  his  grave ; 
After  life's  fitful  fever  he  sleeps  well; 
Treason  has  done  his  worst:  nor  steel,  nor  poison, 
Malice  domestic,  foreign  levy,  nothing, 
Can  touch  him  further." 

Senator  Sumner  said  that  "  impressed  by  its  beauty,  or 
by  something  else,  he  read  the  passage  a  second  time."  *  His 
tone,  manner,  and  accent,  were  so  impressive,  that  after  his 

1.  The  author  has  a  quarto  edition  of  Shakespeare,  witfi  the  name  of  Lincoln  on  a 
blank  page,  and  believes  it  to  be  that  from  which  he  then  read. 

2.  See  Sumner's  Eulogy  on  Lincoln,  at  Boston,  June  1st,  1865. 


CONCLUSION.  445, 

assassination  his  friends  recalled  the  incident,  and  with  it 
this  passage  from  the  same  play: 

"  This  Duncan 

Hath  borne  his  faculties  so  meek,  hath  been 
So  clear  in  his  great  office,  that  his  virtues 
Will  plead  like  angels,  trumpet-tongued,  against 
The  deep  damnation  of  his  taking-off." 

In  conversation  he  was  most  interesting.  Few  were  so 
well  informed,  and  fewer  still  so  original,  so  impressive,  and 
so  fascinating.  On  every  subject  he  had  something  new 
and  striking  to  say;  and  with  this  there  was  so  much  genial 
humor,  that  he  was  attractive  beyond  comparison.  Mirthful- 
ness  and  melancholy,  hilarity  and  sadness,  were  strangely 
combined  in  him.  His  mirth  was  sometimes  exuberant.  It 
sparkled  in  jest,  story,  and  anecdote,  while  at  the  next 
moment,  his  peculiarly  sad,  pathetic,  melancholy  eyes  would 
seem  to  wander  far  away,  and  one  realized  that  he  was  a  man 
"familiar  with  sorrow  and  acquainted  with  grief."  This 
peculiar  look  often  suggested  the  thought:  "  What  has  made 
this  joyous,  merry  man  so  sad  ?  What  great  sorrow  lies  at  his 
heart?"  Statesmen,  great  soldiers,  scholars,  and  distin 
guished  foreigners  all  agreed  that  as  a  conversationalist  he 
had  no  equal.  As  a  public  speaker,  he  was  the  most  effec 
tive  of  the  great  speakers  of  his  day.  That  is,  he  brought 
more  of  his  hearers  to  his  conclusions  than  any  other.  There 
are  more  of  his  sayings,  more  extracts  from  his  writings  and 
speeches,  generally  familiar,  than  of  any  other  American. 
Great  as  were  his  services  as  President,  the  influence  upon 
the  future  of  his  words,  his  acts,  and  his  character,  in  shap 
ing  the  nation's  character,  will  be  scarcely  less  important. 
"  Honest  Abe "  will  help  to  make  his  countrymen  honest. 
His  patriotism,  his  integrity,  his  purity,  his  moderation,  will 
contribute  largely  to  make  the  American  people  patriotic, 
honest,  and  upright.  He  was  brought  by  many  qualities  in 
such  close  sympathy  with  the  masses  of  the  people,  that  it  is 
not  extravagant  to  say  that  the  national  character  will  be 


446  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

more  influenced  by  him  than  by  any  other  man  in  our  his 
tory.  Greater  in  some  things  than  Washington,  he  had  far 
more  in  common  with  the  people  than  the  founder  of  the 
republic,  and  his  influence  will  be  greater.  And  yet,  who 
can  measure  this  influence?  who  can  estimate  the  power  of 
"  Aristides  the  Just "  ?  who  can  measure  the  formative  influ 
ence  of  Shakespeare  ? 

We  hear  Lincoln's  words  in  every  school-house  and  col 
lege,  in  every  cabin  and  at  every  public  meeting.  We  read 
them  in  every  newspaper,  school-book,  and  magazine;  and 
they  are  all  in  favor  of  right,  and  liberty,  and  truth,  and  of 
honesty  and  reverence  for  God.  His  words,  becoming  some 
of  them  as  familiar  as  the  Bible,  are  on  the  tongues  of  all 
the  people,  shaping  the  national  character,  and  thus  "though 
dead  he  yet  speaketh."  His  life,  his  teaching,  and  his  char 
acter  will  prolong  the  life  of  the  republic.  If  Providence 
sends  us  other  Lincolns,  and  enough  of  them,  the  republic 
may  continue  forever. 

Lincoln  was  not  a  scholar,  but  where  is  there  a  speech 
more  completely  exhaustive  in  argument  than  his  Cooper 
Institute  speech  ?  Where  anything  more  touching  and 
pathetic  than  his  farewell  to  his  neighbors  at  Springfield  ? 
Where  anything  more  eloquent  than  the  appeal  for  peace 
and  union  in  his  first  inaugural  ?  Where  anything  finer  than 
his  defense  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  in  the 
Douglas  debates  ?  Where  the  equal  in  moral  sublimity  of 
his  speech  at  Gettysburg?  Where  anything  stronger  than 
the  argument  on  arrests  in  his  letter  to  the  Albany  meeting  ? 
Where  anything  finer  than  his  letter  to  the  Illinois  State 
Convention  ?  Where  is  there,  in  simple  grandeur  of  thought 
and  sentiment,  the  equal  of  his  last  inaugural? 

It  is  very  strange  that  any  reader  of  Lincoln's  speeches 
and  writings  should  have  the  hardihood  to  charge  him  with 
a  want  of  religious  feeling.  No  more  reverent  Christian 
than  he  ever  sat  in  the  executive  chair,  not  excepting  Wash 
ington.  He  was  by  nature  religious  ;  full  of  religious  senti 
ment.  The  veil  between  him  and  the  supernatural  was  very 


CONCLUSION.  447 

thin.  It  is  not  claimed  that  he  was  orthodox.  For  creeds 
and  dogmas  he  cared  little.  But  in  the  great  fundamental 
principles  of  religion,  of  the  Christian  religion,  he  was  a  firm 
believer.  Belief  in  the  existence  of  God,  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  in  the  Bible  as  the  revelation  of  God  to  man,  in 
the  efficacy  and  duty  of  prayer,  in  reverence  towards  the 
Almighty,  and  in  love  and  charity  to  man,  was  the  basis  of 
his  religion.  From  the  time  he  left  Springfield  to  his  death 
he  not  only  himself  continually  prayed  for  divine  assistance, 
but  constantly  asked  the  prayers  of  his  friends  for  himself 
and  his  country.  Declarations  of  his  trust  in  God  and  his 
belief  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer  pervade  his  state  papers,  let 
ters,  and  speeches.  Pages  of  quotations  showing  this  might 
be  furnished.  His  reply  to  the  negroes  of  Baltimore  when 
they,  in  1864,  presented  him  with  a  magnificent  Bible,  ought 
to  silence  forever  those  who  charge  him  with  unbelief.  He 
said  :  "  In  regard  to  the  Great  Book  I  have  only  to  say,  that 
it  is  the  best  gift  which  God  has  given  to  man.  All  the 
good  from  the  Savior  of  the  world  is  communicated  through 
this  Book."  ' 

In  a  letter  written  January  i2th,  1851,  when  his  father 
was  dangerously  ill,  he  says:  "  I  sincerely  hope  father  may 
yet  recover  his  health,  but  at  all  events  tell  him  to  remember 
to  call  upon  and  confide  in  our  great  and  good  and  merci 
ful  Maker,  who  will  not  turn  any  from  Him  in  any  extremi 
ty.  He  notes  the  fall  of  a  sparrow,  and  numbers  the  hairs 
of  our  heads.  He  will  not  forget  the  dying  man  who  puts 
his  trust  in  Him.  *  *  Say  to  him  if  it  be  his  lot  to  go 
now,  he  will  soon  have  a  joyous  meeting  with  loved  ones  gone 
before,  and  where  the  rest  of  us,  through  the  help  of  God, 
hope  ere  long  to  join  him." '  To  a  friend,  who  inquired 

1.  See  the  speech,  In  McPherson's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  424.    Also,  Wash 
ington  Chronicle,  September  5,  1864,  where  it  is  printed  entire.     A  full  account  of 
the  presentation  is  to  be  found  in  Carpenter's  Six  Months  at  the  White  House,  and 
Lincoln's  speech  in  full  on  p.  199. 

2.  This  letter  is  quoted  in  full  in  a  letter  of  W.  H.  Herndon,  dated  February  18th, 
1870,  in  which  he  says,  speaking  of  the  letter:  "  I  hold  a  letter  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  my 
hand,  dated  January  12th,  1851,  from  which  the  above  paragraphs  are  taken." 


448  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

y,  with  his  marked  religious  character,  he  did  not  unite 
with  some  church  organization, l  Lincoln  replied:  "  I  have 
never  united  myself  to  any  church,  because  I  found  diffi 
culty  in  giving  my  assent,  without  mental  reservation,  to  the 
long  and  complicated  statements  of  Christian  doctrine  which 
characterize  their  articles  of  belief  and  confessions  of  faith. 
When  any  church  will  inscribe  over  its  altar,  as  its  sole 
qualification  for  membership,  the  Savior's  condensed  state 
ment  of  the  substance  of  both  law  and  gospel:  '  Thou  shalt 
love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  with  all  thy  soul, 
and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,'  that 
church  shall  I  join  with  all  my  heart  and  soul." 

His  statements  to  Mr.  Bateman,  in  the  form  which  Mr. 
Bateman  declared  to  be  substantially  correct,  have  been 
quoted  already. 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  debate  the  subject.  All  his 
writings  prove  that  he  was  a  religious  man,  reverent,  humble, 
prayerful,  charitable,  conscientious;  otherwise  his  whole  life 
was  a  sham,  and  he  himself  a  hypocrite.  Doubtless,  like 
many  others,  he  passed  through  periods  of  doubt  and  per 
plexity;  but  his  faith  in  a  divine  Providence  began  at  his 
mother's  knee,  and  ran  through  all  the  changes  of  his  life. 
Not  orthodox,  not  a  man  of  creeds,  he  was  a  man  of  simple 
trust  in  God,  living  in  the  consciousness  of  the  presence  of 
the  great  Creator,  and  one  whose  heart  was  ever  open  to  the 
impressions  of  the  unseen  world.  He  was  one  whom  no 
sectarian  could  claim  as  a  partisan,  yet  one  whom  every  true 
Christian  could  recognize  as  a  brother.  To  the  poor  widow, 
five  of  whose  sons  had  been  killed  in  battle,  and  the  sixth 
severely  wounded,  he  said:  "  I  pray  our  Heavenly  Father 
may  assuage  the  anguish  of  your  bereavement."  These  pages 
might  be  filled  with  quotations  of  a  similar  character,  but 
surely  this  is  not  necessary.  When  the  unbeliever  shall  con 
vince  the  people  that  this  man,  whose  whole  life  was 
straightforward,  truthful,  clear,  and  honest,  was  a  sham  and 

1.  Mr.  Deming,  member  of  Congress  from  Connecticut.  See  his  Eulogy  of  Lin 
coln,  p.  42. 


CONCLUSION. 


449 


a  hypocrite,  then,  but  not  before,  may  he  make  the  world 
doubt  his  Christianity. 

Let  us  now  for  a  moment  try  to  appreciate  the  greatness 
of  his  work  and  the  value  of  his  services.  What  did  he 
accomplish  in  the  four  years  of  his  administration  ? 

When  he  became  President,  the  ship  of  state  was  tossing- 
among  the  rocks,  driven  hither  and  thither  by  a  fearful  tor 
nado.  He  found  the  treasury  empty,  the  national  credit 
gone,  the  little  nucleus  of  an  army  and  navy  scattered  and 
disarmed,  many  of  the  officers  rebels,  and  those  who  were 
loyal  strangers.  The  party  which  elected  him  was  in  a 
minority,  he  having  received  but  a  plurality  of  the  popular 
vote.  The  old  democratic  party,  which  had  ruled  most  of 
the  time  for  half  a  century,  was  hostile,  and  a  large  portion 
of  it,  even  in  the  North,  in  sympathy  with  the  insurgents;, 
while  his  own  party  was  made  up  of  discordant  elements, 
Nor  had  he  or  his  party  then  acquired  prestige  and  the  con 
fidence  of  the  people.  It  is  the  exact  truth  to  say  that  when 
he  entered  the  White  House,  he  was  the  object  of  personal 
and  unfavorable  prejudice  with  a  majority  of  the  people, 
and  of  contempt  to  a  powerful  minority.  He  entered  upon 
his  work  of  restoring  the  Union  without  sympathy  from  any 
of  the  great  powers  of  Western  Europe.  Those  which  were 
not  open  enemies  manifested  a  cold  neutrality,  or  a  secret 
hostility,  and  none  of  them  extended  to  him  and  his  admin 
istration  any  cordial  good-will  or  moral  aid.  The  London 
Times  gave  expression  to  the  hope  and  belief  of  the  ruling 
classes,  not  only  of  Great  Britain  but  of  France,  when  it  said 
exultingly:  "  The  great  republic  is  no  more.  The  bubble  is 
burst."  Yet  in  spite  of  all  this  inexperienced  man  of  the 
prairies,*  by  his  sagacity,  his  sound  judgment,  his  wisdom, 
his  integrity,  and  his  trust  in  God,  crushed  the  most  stupen 
dous  of  rebellions,  and  one  supported  by  armies  more  vast, 
resources  greater,  and  an  organization  more  perfect  than  any 
which  ever  before  undertook  the  dismemberment  of  a  nation. 
He  not  only  united  and  held  together,  against  bitter  and 
contending  factions,  his  own  party,  but  strengthened  it  by 
29 


45O  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

winning  the  confidence  and  support  of  the  best  part  of  all 
parties.  He  composed  the  bitter  quarrels  of  rival  military 
leaders,  and  at  length  discovered  and  placed  at  the  head  of 
his  armies  the  skill  and  ability  which  secured  military  suc 
cess.  Gradually  he  won  the  respect,  the  confidence,  the 
good- will  and  sympathy  of  all  nations  and  peoples.  His 
own  countrymen  learned  that  he  was  honest  and  patriotic, 
that  he  was  as  unselfish  and  magnanimous  as  he  was  true, 
and  they  re-elected  him  almost  by  acclamation;  and  after  a 
series  of  brilliant  victories,  he  overcame  and  destroyed  all 
armed  opposition.  Ever  keeping  pace  with  public  senti 
ment,  he  struck  blow  after  blow  at  the  institution  of  slavery, 
until  he  proclaimed  emancipation,  and  crowned  his  work  by 
an  amendment  of  the  Constitution,  prohibiting  slavery 
throughout  the  republic,  thus  realizing  the  dream  of  his 
early  years.  And  all  this  he  accomplished  within  the  brief 
period  of  four  years. 

Those  who  think  he  lacked  boldness  and  firmness,  do  not 
know  and  appreciate  the  man.  He  had  no  vanity  in  the 
exhibition  of  power,  but  what  he  thought  it  his  duty  to  do, 
he  did  with  a  quiet  firmness.  What  bolder  act  than  the  sur 
render  of  Mason  and  Slidell,  against  the  resolution  of  Con 
gress  and  the  intense  public  sentiment  prevailing  ?  No  mem 
ber  of  his  Cabinet,  nor  all  of  them,  nor  Congress  itself,  could 
induce  him  to  swerve  from  his  convictions  of  duty.  The 
whole  Senate  did  not  succeed  in  coercing  him  to  remove  Mr. 
Seward  as  Secretary  of  State.  And  this  man,  when  the  hour 
of  supreme  victory  came,  made  it  not  the  hour  of  vengeance, 
but  of  reconciliation  and  forgiveness.  No  words  of  bitter 
ness  or  of  denunciation  can  be  found  in  his  writings  or 
speeches.  He  had  the  almost  divine  power  of  separating 
the  crime  from  the  criminal.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  had 
a  deep,  profound  conviction,  a  superstition,  a  presentiment 
— call  it  what  you  please — a  belief  that  he  was  called  and  set 
apart  for  a  great  purpose,  and  that  he  was  an  instrument  in 
the  hands  of  God  for  the  work  he  had  to  do.  Hence  his 
faith,  his  trust  that  right  makes  might.  Believing  this,  he 


CONCLUSION. 


451 


did  his  duty  as  God  enabled  him  to  see  it,  and  he  never  in 
the  darkest  hour  despaired. 

Mr.  Lincoln  has  been  charged  with  telling  coarse  and 
indecent  anecdotes.  The  charge,  so  far  as  it  indicates  any 
taste  for  indecency,  is  untrue.  His  love  for  the  humorous 
was  so  strong,that  if  a  story  had  this  quality,  and  was  racy  or 
pointed,  he  did  not  always  refrain  from  narrating  it  because 
the  incidents  were  coarse.  But  it  was  always  clear  to  the  lis 
tener  that  the  story  was  told  for  its  wit  and  not  for  its  vul 
garity.  "  To  the  pure  all  things  are  pure,"  and  Lincoln  was  a 
man  of  purity  of  thought  as  well  as  of  life. l 

It  will  interest  those  who  did  not  see  him  at  the  White 
House,  and  who  have  come  on  the  stage  since  his  death,  to 
know  something  of  his  life  and  habits  while  he  lived  in  the 
Executive  Mansion.  At  Springfield,  his  home  was  a  small, 
modest,  comfortable  wooden  cottage,  such  as  is  found 
everywhere  in  the  villages  of  our  country.  Here  he  lived  in 
a  quiet,  unostentatious  manner,  without  any  pretension,  and 
dispensed  to  his  personal  friends  and  members  of  the  bar 
and  judges,  a  cordial  but  very  simple  hospitality.  At  the 
White  House,  he  was  compelled  by  custom  and  usage  to 
have  large  receptions,  to  give  dinners,  and  to  adopt  a  life  of 
conventional  form  and  ceremony,  to  which  it  was  not  easy 
for  him  to  conform,  and  which  was  far  less  agreeable  than 
the  simple  and  easy  life  he  had  led  before.  His  reception- 
room — which  he  called  his  office — was  on  the  second  floor 
on  the  south  side  of  the  White  House,  and  the  second  apart 
ment  from  the  southeast  corner,  the  corner  room  looking  east 
towards  the  treasury  being  occupied  by  his  private  secretary. 

1.  Carpenter,  in  his  "Six  Months  at  the  White  House," pp.  80-81,  says:  "It  is 
but  simple  justice  to  his  (Lincoln's)  memory,  that  I  should  state  that  during  the 
entire  period  of  my  stay  In  Washington,  after  witnessing  his  intercourse  with  all 
classes  of  men,  *  *  *  I  cannot  recollect  to  have  heard  him  relate  a  circumstance 
to  any  of  them  which  would  have  been  out  of  place  in  a  lady's  drawing-room."  Dr. 
Stone,  his  family  physician,  said  :  "Lincoln  is  the  purest-hearted  man  with  whom  I 
ever  came  in  contact."  My  own  personal  observation  and  intercourse,  extending 
through  a  period  of  over  twenty  years,  enables  me  to  endorse  these  statements.  The 
truth  is  that  scores  of  stories  of  this  character  have  been  falsely  attributed  to  Mr. 
Lincoln. 


452 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


It  was  about  twenty-five  by  forty  feet  in  size.  In  the  center, 
on  the  west,  was  a  large  white  marble  fire-place,  with  big 
old-fashioned  brass  andirons,  and  a  large  and  high  brass 
fender.  A  wood  fire  was  burning  in  cool  weather.  The  large 
windows  opened  on  the  beautiful  lawn  to  the  south,  with  a 
view  of  the  unfinished  Washington  Monument,  the  Smith 
sonian  Institute,  the  Potomac,  Alexandria,  and  down  the 
river  towards  Mt.  Vernon.  Across  the  Potomac  were  Arling 
ton  Heights,  and  Arlington  House,  late  the  residence  of 
Robert  E.  Lee.  On  the  hills  around,  during  nearly  all  of  his 
administration,  were  the  white  tents  of  soldiers,  and  field  for 
tifications  and  camps,  and  in  every  direction  could  be  seen 
the  brilliant  colors  of  the  national  flag.  The  furniture  of 
this  room  consisted  of  a  large  oak  table  covered  with  cloth, 
extending  north  and  south,  and  it  was  around  this  table  that 
the  Cabinet  sat  when  it  held  its  meetings.  Near  the  end  of 
the  table,  and  ^between  the  windows,  was  another  table,  on 
the  west  side  of  which  the  President  sat  in  a  large  arm  chair, 
and  at  this  table  he  wrote.  A  tall  desk  with  pigeon- holes  for 
papers  stood  against  the  south  wall.  The  only  books  usually 
found  in  this  room  were  the  Bible,  the  United  States  Statutes, 
'and  a  copy  of  Shakespeare.  There  were  a  few  chairs,  and 
two  plain  hair-covered  sofas.  There  were  two  or  three  map 
frames,  from  which  hung  military  maps  on  which  the  posi 
tion  and  movements  of  the  armies  were  traced.  There  was 
an  old  and  discolored  engraving  of  General  Jackson  on  the 
mantel,  and  later  a  photograph  of  John  Bright.  Doors 
opened  into  this  room  from  the  room  of  the  secretary,  and 
from  the  outside  hall  running  east  and  west  across  the  House. 
A  bell  cord  within  reach  of  his  hand  extended  to  the  secretary's 
office.  A  messenger  stood  at  the  door  opening  from  the  hall, 
who  took  in  the  cards  and  names  of  visitors.  Here,  in  this 
plain  room,  Mr.  Lincoln  spent  most  of  his  time  while  Presi 
dent.  Here  he  received  every  one,  from  the  Chief  Justice 
and  Lieutenant  General  to  the  private  soldier  and  humblest 
citizen.  Custom  had  fixed  certain  rules  of  precedence,  and 
the  order  in  which  officials  should  be  received.  Members  of 


CONCLUSION.  453 

the  Cabinet  and  the  high  officers  of  the  army  and  navy  were 
generally  promptly  admitted.  Senators  and  members  of  Con 
gress  were  received  in  the  order  of  their  arrival.  Sometimes 
there  would  be  a  crowd  of  senators  and  members  of  Con 
gress  waiting  their  turn.  While  thus  waiting,  the  loud  ring 
ing  laugh  of  Mr.  Lincoln — in  which  he  would  be  joined  by 
those  inside,  but  which  was  rather  provoking  to  those  outside 
— would  be  heard  by  the  waiting  and  impatient  crowd. 
Here,  day  after  day,  often  from  early  morning  to  late  at 
night,  Lincoln  sat,  listened,  talked,  and  decided.  He  was 
patient,  just,  considerate,  and  hopeful.  The  people  came  to 
him  as  to  a  father.  He  saw  everyone,  and  many  wasted  his 
precious  time.  Governors,  senators,  congressmen,  officers, 
clergymen,  bankers,  merchants — all  classes  approached  him 
with  familiarity.  This  incessant  labor,  the  study  of  the  great 
problems  he  had  to  decide,  the  worry  of  constant  impor 
tunity,  the  quarrels  of  officers  of  the  army,  the  care,  anxiety, 
and  responsibility  of  his  position,  wore  upon  his  vigorous 
frame. 

His  friends  and  his  family,  and  especially  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
watched  his  careworn  and  anxious  face  with  the  great 
est  solicitude.  She  and  they  sometimes  took  him  from  his 
labors  almost  in  spite  of  himself.  He  walked  and  rode  about 
Washington  and  its  picturesque  surroundings.  He  visited 
the  hospitals,  and,  with  his  friends,  and  in  conversation,  and 
visits  to  the  theatre,  he  sought  to  divert  his  mind  from  the 
pressure  upon  it.  He  often  rode  with  Secretary  Seward, 
with  Senator  Sumner,  and  others.  But  his  greatest  relief  was 
when  he  was  visited  by  his  old  Illinois  friends,  and  for  a 
while,  by  anecdotes  and  reminiscences  of  the  past,  his  mind 
was  beguiled  from  the  constant  strain  upon  it.  These  old 
friends  were  sometimes  shocked  with  the  change  in  his 
appearance.  They  had  known  him  at  his  home,  and  at  the 
courts  in  Illinois,  with  a  frame  of  iron  and  nerves  of  steel ; 
as  a  man  who  hardly  knew  what  illness  was,  ever  genial  and 
sparkling  with  frolic  and  fun,  nearly  always  cheery  and 
bright.  Now,  as  the  months  of  the  war  went  slowly  on,  they 


454  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

saw  the  wrinkles  on  his  face  and  forehead  deepen  into  furrowsr 
the  laugh  of  old  days  was  less  frequent,  and  it  did  not  seem  to 
come  from  the  heart.  Anxiety,  responsibility,  care,  thought, 
disasters,  defeats,  the  injustice  of  friends,  wore  upon  his 
giant  frame,  and  his  nerves  of  steel  became  at  times  irrita 
ble.  He  said  one  day,  with  a  pathos  which  language  cannot 
describe  :  "  I  feel  as  though  I  shall  never  be  glad  any  more." 
During  these  four  years,  he  had  no  respite,  no  holidays. 
When  others  fled  away  from  the  heat  and  dust  of  the  cap 
ital,  he  remained.  He  would  not  leave  the  helm  until  all 
danger  was  passed,  and  the  good  ship  of  state  had  weathered 
the  storm.  At  last  his  labors  were  crowned  with  complete 
success.  His  great  work  was  done,  and  while  the  shouts  of 
victory  were  resounding  in  his  ears  and  echoing  over  the 
land,  he  was  assassinated. 

There  is  but  one  other  name  in  American  history  which 
can  be  mentioned  with  his  as  that  of  a  peer — the  name  of 
Washington.  Lincoln  was  as  pure,  as  just,  as  patriotic,  as 
the  father  of  his  country.  He  had  more  faith  in  the  people, 
and  was  more  hopeful  for  the  future.  Both  have  been  so 
associated  with  our  history  that  time  will  only  brighten  the 
lustre  of  their  fame. 


THE    END. 


INDEX. 


ACQUIA  CREEK,  VA.,  291. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  member  of  Buf 
falo  convention,  104  ;  in  Congress, 
176 ;  Minister  to  Great  Britain,  217. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  in  Thirtieth  Con 
gress,  76;  member  of  American  An 
ti-Slavery  society,  102  ;  speeches  of 
compared  with  Lincoln's,  139  ;  on 
Emancipation,  269-270. 

Aiken,  William,  124. 

Alabama,  the,  surrenders  to  the  Kear- 
sarge,  381;  sinks,  382. 

Alexandria,  Va.,  213-214,  290-291. 

Alton,  111.,  Lincoln  and  Douglas  debate 
at,  151-152  ;  arms  transferred  to, 
212. 

Altooua,  Pa.,  meeting  of  loyal  Govern 
ors  at,  266,  289. 

Anderson,  Robert,  in  Black  Hawk  war, 
35,  36;  calls  on  the  President,  36;  in 
command  of  Fort  Moultrle,  174;  sur 
renders  Fort  Sumter,  204. 

Andrew,  John  A.,  205. 

Anthony,  Henry  B.,  221. 

Antietam,  battle  of,  296. 

Anti- Slavery  societies,  first  society  or 
ganized,  94;  other  organizations,  94- 
95;  formation  of  the  American  soci 
ety,  102 ;  growth  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
party,  103-104. 

Appomattox,  425. 

Arlington  Heights,  Va.,  213,  375. 

Armstrong,  Hannah,  begs  Lincoln  to  save 
her  son,  87. 

Armstrong,  Jack,  leader  of  the  Clary 
Grove  Boys,  32,  87. 

Armstrong,  "William  D.,  trial  of,  87-88; 
acquittal,  89. 

Arnold,  Isaac  N.,  dinner  to  Lincoln  and 
others,  90;  in  Thirty-seventh  Con 
gress,  222;  bill  to  prohibit  slavery  in 
the  territories,  244-245;  calls  on  the 
President,  251;  letter  to  the  Presi 
dent  in  behalf  of  the  Sanitary  Fair, 


267;  new  year  call  on  the  President, 
351-352;  introduces  test  resolution, 
352-353;  speech  on  joint  resolution, 
353-355;  correspondence  with  Sew- 
ard,  368;  letter  on  Lincoln's  re-nom 
ination,  387-389;  letter  from  Dana, 
416;  letter  from  Sherman,  420-423; 
calls  on  Mrs.  Lincoln,  439. 

Ashley,  James  M.,  346,  352,  356,  359. 

Ashmun,  George,  76,  163,  430. 

Atchison,  David  R.,  112,  113. 

Atlanta,  Ga.,  captured  by  Sherman,  377- 
378;  inhabitants  removed,  378. 


BAKER,  EDWARD  D.,  in  Illinois  Legisla 
ture,  50,  57,  65,  67;  protected  from 
mob  by  Lincoln,  67-68;  congressional 
candidate,  72,  73;  elected  to  Con 
gress,  73;  at  the  bar,  141;  reply  to 
Breckenrldge,  225-226;  Sumner's 
opinion  of,  226;  speech  on  resolution 
approving  the  course  of  the  Presi 
dent,  230;  killed  at  Ball's  Bluff,  233; 
honors  paid  his  memory,  238-240; 
place  of  burial,  240. 

Baker's  Creek,  Miss.,  317. 

Ball's  Bluff,  Va.,  battle  of,  233. 

Baltimore,  Md.,  Democratic  convention 
of  1860  at,  161;  a  hot-bed  of  rebellion, 
184;  Massachusetts  troops  attacked 
by  mob,  207,  211;  Republican  con 
vention  of  1864,  387-389. 

Bancroft,  George,  131. 

Banks,  Nathaniel  P..  elected  speaker,  124; 
ordered  to  arrest  Maryland  Legisla 
ture,  233-234 ;  appointed  to  Army  of 
Virginia,  288;  driven  back  by  Stone 
wall  Jackson,  301. 

Bateman,  Newton,  178-180. 

Bates,  Edward,  In  Chicago  convention, 
165;  Attorney  General,  194,  196. 

Baton  Rouge,  La.,  279. 

Bear  Grass  Fort,  15. 


(455) 


456 


INDEX. 


Beauregard,  P.  G.  T.,  commands  at  Bull 
Run,  231;  battle  of  Shiloh,  276,  277. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  170. 

Bell,  John,  of  Tenn.,  Ill,  117. 

Bellows,  Henry  W.,  406-407. 

Belmont,  Mo.,  208,  274. 

Benjamin,  Judah  P.,  attends  secession 
meeting  In  Washington,  177;  vacant 
seat  in  Congress,  223;  urges  the  use 
of  negro  troops,  400-401. 

Benton,  Thomas  H.,  17;  in  Congress,  77; 
opposes  annexation  of  Texas,  98;  op 
poses  Nebraska  bill,  111 ;  arrested  by 
sergeant-at-arms,  111;  anecdote  of, 
140. 

Bentonville,  N,  C.,  418. 

Berdan,  Hiram,  at  Gettysburg,  321. 

Bermuda  Hundred,  Va.,  375. 

Big  Black  River,  Miss.,  317. 

Bingham,  John  A.,  222,  244. 

Bingham,  Kinsley  S.,  221. 

Birnoy,  David  B.,  at  Gettysburg,  322. 

Bissell,  William  H.,  57;  organization  of 
the  Republican  party,  125;  nominated 
for  Governor  of  Illinois,  126;  chal 
lenged  by  Jefferson  Davis,  127. 

Black,  Jeremiah  S.,  173. 

Black  Hawk  war,  33-37. 

Blair,  Francis  P.,  member  of  Pittsburgh 
convention,  125 ;  efforts  against  slave 
ry,  195-196;  residence  occupied  by 
Breckcnridge,  376;  hostility  to  Fre 
mont,  390;  emissary  to  the  South, 
398-399. 

Blair,  Frank  P.,  Jr.,  organization  of  the 
Republican  party,  125;  represents  St. 
Louis  in  Congress,  196;  loyalty  of, 
212;  speech  on  bill  for  the  Emancipa 
tion  of  slaves  in  District  of  Colum 
bia,  243;  in  the  army,  316. 

Blair,  Montgomery,  organization  of  the 
Republican  party,  125;  Postmaster 
General,  194,  195  ;  disapproves  of 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  260- 
261;  home  burned  by  Confederates, 
376  ;  resigns  from  the  cabinet,  390- 
391. 

Bloomlngtou,  111.,  organization  of  Illi 
nois  Republicans  at,  125-126;  Lincoln 
and  Douglas  Debate  at,  143. 

Blue  Licks,  battle  of,  68. 

Boone,  Daniel,  15,  16,  18. 

Booth,    John  Wilkes,   assassinates  Lin 


coln,  431-432;  killed  by  Boston  Cor- 
bett,  433. 

Bouligny,  John  E.,  177. 

Bowling  Green,  Ky.,  275. 

Bragg,  Braxton,  302,  332.  334. 

Breckenridge,  John  C.,  Democratic  can 
didate  for  the  Vice  Presidency,  127; 
nominated  for  the  Presidency,  161; 
electoral  vote,  171;  at  Lincoln's  in 
auguration,  183;  joins  the  Confeder 
ate  army,  223;  Baker's  reply  to,  225; 
opposes  Trumbull  in  Congress,  228; 
at  Lynchburg,  375-376;  occupies 
home  of  Francis  P.  Blair,  376. 

Breckenridge,  Rev.  Robert  J.,  389. 

Breese,  Sidney,  58,  85. 

Bright,  Jesse  D.,  222. 

Broderick,  David  C.,  226,  240. 

Brown,  B.  Gratz,  196. 

Brown,  John,  113-114. 

Browning,  Orville  H.,inU.  S.  Senate,  51, 
57,  65,  221;  attends  Whig  meeting  at 
Springfield,  67;  eulogy  of  Baker, 
239-240. 

Brownlow,  William  G.,  197. 

Bruinsburg,  Miss.,  315. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  125,  158. 

Buchanan,  Franklin,  311. 

Buchanan,  James,  candidate  for  the 
Presidency,  127;  election,  128;  in 
terview  with  Douglas,  129-130; 
weakness  of,  172;  refuses  reinforce 
ments  for  Charleston  Harbor,  173; 
at  Lincoln's  inauguration,  189. 

Buckner,  Simon  B.,  275,  311. 

Buell,  D.  C.,  at  battle  of  Shiloh,  276-277: 
superseded  by  Rosecrans,  302. 

Buffalo,  N.  Y.,  Anti-Slavery  convention 
of  1848,  104,  195. 

Bull  Run,  use  of  slaves  by  the  Confed 
erates  at,  228;  battle  of,  231. 

Burnett,  Henry  C.,  of  Ky.,  228. 

Burnside,  Ambrose  E.,  Roanoke  Island, 
277;  Newbern,  277;  Acquia  Creek, 
290,  291;  Antletam,  296;  in  com 
mand  of  Army  of  the  Potomac,  299, 
300;  Fredericksburg,  300-301,  302; 
demands  Hooker's  removal,  303; 
Knoxvillc,  334 ;  373. 

Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  of  Mass.,  in 
Charleston  convention,  160;  on  se 
cession,  198;  in  command  of  Massa 
chusetts  volunteers,  205;  troops  en- 


INDEX. 


457 


tertained  by  Col.  Stetson,  206;  at 
Baltimore,  211-212;  declares  negroes 
contraband  of  war,  218-219;  at  New 
Orleans,  278-279;  "bottled  up,"  375. 

Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  of  N.  Y.,  104,  105. 

Butler,  William,  of  111.,  54,  70. 

Butterneld,  Justin,  anecdotes  of,  57-58; 
at  Springfield  Whig  meeting,  67; 
Lincoln  commissions  the  son  of,  81. 

CAIRO,  ILL.,  208,  274. 

Calhoun,  John,  appoints  Lincoln  deputy 
surveyor,  41 ;  in  Illinois  Legislature, 
59;  joint  discussion,  65,  141. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  77,  108,  139,180,349. 

California,  attempt  at  organization  as  a 
slave  state  and  its  failure,  106 ;  ad 
mitted  as  a  free  state,  106. 

Cameron,  Simon,  in  Thirtieth  Congress, 
77;  candidate  at  Chicago  conven 
tion,  164,  165;  Secretary  of  War, 
194,  195;  South  Carolina,  "the  prod 
igal  son,"  200;  suggests  arming  ne 
groes,  232-233;  Minister  to  Russia, 
241. 

Campbell,  John  A.,  398-400. 

Carpenter,  F.  B.,  account  of  the  prepar 
ation  of  the  Emancipation  Proclama 
tion,  261-262. 

Cartter,  David  K.,  165. 

Cart wright,  Peter,  73. 

Cass,  Lewis,  Lincoln's  campaign  speech 
against,  37,  79;  in  Thirtieth  Congress, 
77;  candidate  for  the  Presidency, 
104-105;  resigns  from  Buchanan's 
cabinet,  173. 

Centerville,  Va.,  280. 

Champion  Hills,  Miss.,  317. 

Chancellorsville,  battle  of,  304. 

Chandler,  Zachariah,  221,  410. 

Channing,  William  E.,  102,  170. 

Charleston,  111.,  Lincoln  and  Douglas  de 
bate  at,  147-149. 

Charleston,  S.  C.,  Democratic  convention 
of  I860  at,  160-161;  abandoned  by 
Hardee,  418. 

•Chase,  Salmon  P.,  member  of  Buffalo 
convention,  101;  joins  Free  Soil 
party,  105;  in  Thirty-third  Congress, 
108,  opposes  Nebraska  bill,  110;  can 
didate  at  Chicago  convention,  164, 
165,  at  Lincoln's  inauguration,  189: 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  194,  195; 


assists  in  drawing  up  the  Emancipa 
tion  Proclamation,  263;  opinion  on 
Emancipation,  271;  Presidential  as 
pirations,  386;  resigns  from  the  cab 
inet,  393;  appointed  Chief  Justice, 
894-395;  administers  the  oath  of  of 
fice  to  Lincoln,  402. 

Chattanooga,  Tenn.,  333-334. 

Chicago,  111.,  Lincoln  and  Douglas  debate 
at,  143;  Republican  convention  of 
1860  at,  163-167. 

Chicahominy  River,  285,  287,  374. 

Chickamauga,  Ga.,332. 

Cincinnati,  Ohio,  Democratic  convention 
of  1856  at,  127-128;  threatened  by 
Bragg' s  army,  302. 

City  Point,  Va.,  375. 

Clark,  George  Rogers,  15,  68. 

Clary  Grove  Boys,  32-33,  34,  48. 

Clay,  Cassius  M.,  102. 

Clay,  Clement  C.,  396-397. 

Clay,  Henry,  24 ;  canvass  for  the  Presi 
dency,  73;  Missouri  Compromise,  99; 
slavery  measures,  107,  349,  356. 

Clements,  Andrew  J.,  221. 

Clinton,  DeWitt,  202. 

Clinton,  Sir  Henry,  270. 

Cobb,  Howell,  77,  173,  174, 

Cold  Harbor,  Va.,  374. 

Colfax,  Schuyler,  222,  365,  429-430, 

Collamer,  Jacob,  76,  221. 

Columbia,  S.  C.,  capture  of,  418. 

Congress,  first  general  Congress  of  the 
colonies,  94;  the  Thirtieth,  76-78; 
Thirty-third,  108-111;  Thirty-fourth, 
124-125;  Thirty-sixth,  176-178,  182; 
Thirty-seventh,  extra  session,  220- 
230,  regular  session,  237-238,  242- 
252,  256-60,  307-309;  Thirty-eighth, 
267,  346-356,  359-365. 

Congress,  the  frigate,  destruction  of,  282. 

Conkling,  James  D.,  letter  from  the 
President,  337-340. 

Conkling,  Roscoe,  222,  219. 

Conscription,  authorized  by  Congress, 
309,334;  opposition  to,  335-336. 

Contraband  of  war,  219. 

Cook,  Burton  C.,  122,  163,  166,  167. 

Cooper  Institute,  New  York,  Lincoln's 
speech  at,  157-158. 

Corbett,  Boston,  433. 

Corinth,  Miss.,  277. 

Corning,  Erastus,  222. 


45' 


INDEX. 


Cornwallis,  Lord,  270. 

Cox,  Samuel  S.,  222,  245. 

Craven,  Thomas  T.,  383. 

Crittenden,  George  B.,  274. 

Crlttenden,  Jolm  J.,  77;  submits  resolu 
tions  denning  the  object  of  the  war, 
229-30;  action  on  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation,  256-259. 

Crockett,  David,  17. 

Cullom,  Shelby  M.,  201. 

Cumberland,  the  frigate,  sinks,  282. 

Cumberland  river,  military  operations 
on,  274-275. 

Curtin,  Andrew  G.,  205. 

Curtis,  Benjamin  K.,  131. 

Curtis,  George  William,  in  Chicago  con 
vention,  165-166. 

Cutler,  Dr.  Timothy,  351. 

DAHLGKEX,  Jomr  A.,  380,  418. 

Dallas,  Ga.,  378. 

Dalton,  Ga.,  377. 

Dana,  Charles  A.,  416. 

Davis,  David,  57,  84,  163,  166-168. 

Davis,  Garret,  246. 

Davis,  Henry  Winter,  211,  417. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  in  Black  Hawk  war,  36 ; 
in  Thirtieth  Congress,  77;  influence 
with  Buchanan,  174;  at  Washington 
secession  meeting,  177;  President  of 
the  Confederacy,  180,  203;  personal 
description,  180-181;  letter  from 
Pierce,  197;  vacant  seat  of  in  Con 
gress,  223;  Johnson's  denunciation 
of,  226 ;  implores  troops  for  relief  of 
Vicksburg,  317;  boasts  of,  331; 
prophesies  destruction  of  Sherman's 
army,  380;  appoints  representatives 
to  confer  with  the  North,  398 ;  mes 
sage  from  Lee,  425;  flight  of,  425. 

Dawes,  Henry  L.,  243. 

Dayton,  William  L.,  127. 

Deerhound,  the  yacht,  rescues  crew  of 
the  Alabama,  382. 

Decatur,  111.,  Republican  state  conven 
tion  at,  161-162. 

Democratic  party,  convention  of  1856, 
127-128;  conventions  of  1860,  160- 
161;  convention  of  1864,  391-392. 

Dennison,  William,  305,  389,  391. 

Dickinson,  Edward  N.,  90. 

Dix,  John  A.,  77,  174. 

Dixon,  John,  36. 


Dixon's  Ferry,  111.,  35-36. 

Doollttle,  James  R.,  221. 

Doubleday,  Abner,  319,  320. 

Douglas,  Stephen  Arnold,  early  acquaint 
ance  with  Lincoln,  38;  in  Illinois  Leg 
islature,  50-51;  at  Springfield,  57;  in 
House  of  Representatives,  65;  de 
feated  by  Stuart,  66 ;  dines  with  Lin 
coin  and  others  at  the  house  of  Mr. 
Arnold,  90;  on  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise,  99;  in  the  Senate,  109;  personal 
description,  109;  introduces  the  Ne 
braska  bill,  109;  defends  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  compromise,  112;  re 
turns  to  Illinois,  117;  speech  at  State 
Fair,  117;  Lincoln's  reply  and  its  ef 
feet,  117-118;  speech  at  Peoria,  118; 
Lincoln's  reply,  118;  requests  Lin 
coln  to  cease  his  replies,  119;  candi 
date  at  the  convention  of  1856,  127; 
opposition  to  the  Lecompton  consti 
tution,  129;  interview  with  Buch 
anan,  129-130;  importance  of  the  de 
bate  with  Lincoln,  139;  personal 
characteristics,  140-141;  "the  little 
giant,"  142;  debate  at  Chicago,  143 -r 
letter  from  Lincoln,  143;  his  political 
management,  146;  debate  at  Charles 
ton,  148-149;  at  Freeport,  150-151;  at 
Alton,  151-152;  elected  Senator,  153; 
visits  Chicago,  154;  visits  Ohio,  156; 
popularity  in  the  North,  159 ;  nomin 
ated  for  the  Presidency,  161;  de 
feated,  171;  personal  canvass,  171;  at 
Lincoln's  inauguration.  189-190,  192; 
his  prophecy,  192-193;  calls  on  the. 
President,  200;  speech  at  Springfield, 
201;  returns  to  Chicago,  202;  death- 
202;  tribute  of  McDougall,  202. 

Dray  ton,  Captain,  382. 

Dred  Scott  case,  130-131,  244. 

Dresser,  Rev.  Nathan,  72. 

Drummond,  Thomas,  90. 

Dunmore,  Lord,  270. 

EAKLY,  DR.,  49. 

Early,  Jubal  A.,  376,  377. 

Edwards,  Ninian,  50. 

Edwards,  Ninian  W.,  50,  57,  68,  69. 

Edwards,  Mrs.  N.  W.,  68,  439. 

Elkin,  David,  20. 

Ellsworth,  Elmer  E.,  213-214. 

Emancipation  Proclamation,  the,  resolved 


INDEX 


459 


upon  by  the  President,  260;  Carpen 
ter's  account  of,  261-262;  text  of 
lirst  Proclamation,  263,  264 ;  text  of 
final  Proclamation,  264-265;  Its  ef 
fect,  266;  history  of  original  draft, 
266-267;  sanctioned  by  Congress,  267; 
its  reception  by  the  British  govern 
ment,  268;  validity  of,  269-271. 

Emigrant  Aid  Societies,  112. 

English,  James  E.,  365. 

Ericsson,  John,  282. 

Etheridge,  Emerson,  220. 

Everett,  Edward,  in  Congress,  108;  Get 
tysburg  address,  328,  330;  opposes 
retaliation,  410. 

Ewell,  Kichard  S.,  189,  322,  323 

FAIRFAX  COURT  HOUSE,  VA.,  280,  282 
Falmouth,  Va.,  301. 

Farragut,  David  G.,  218;  at  New  Orleans, 
278-279;  on  the  engagement  between 
the  Kearsarge  and  the  Alabama,  38:2 ; 
at  Mobile,  382-383;  at  Lincoln's  fu 
neral,  436. 

Faulkner,  Charles  J.,  216. 

Fell,  J.  W.,  14,  155. 

Fessendeu,  William  P.,  141;  in  Thirty- 
seventh  Congress,  221,  225,  226;  Sec 
retary  of  the  Treasury,  393. 

Fillmore,  Millard,  128. 

Fisher,  George  P.,  245. 

Fitzpatrick,  Benjamin,  161. 

Florida,  the  cruiser,  381;  captured,  382. 

Floyd,  John  B.,  173,  197,  275. 

Forney,  J.  W.,  305. 

Foot,  Solomon,  221. 

Foote,  Andrew  H.,  271-275. 

Forquer,  George,  47-19. 

Fort  Donelson,  274-275. 

Fort  Fisher,  418. 

Fort  Galnes,  382. 

Fort  Hatteras,  231. 

Fort  Henry,  274. 

Fort  Jackson,  278-279. 

Fort  McAllister,  380-381. 

Fort  Macon,  277. 

Fort  Morgan,  382. 

Fort  Moultrie,  174. 

Fort  Powell,  382. 

Fort  Pulaski,  277. 

Fort  St.  Philip,  278-279. 

Fort  Sumter,  204,  224. 

Fortress  Monroe,  218,  290-291. 


Foster,  John  G.,  418. 

Fouke,  Philip  B.,  223. 

Francis, ,  editor  Sangamon  Journal, 

70. 

Frankfort,  Ky.,  occupied  by  Bragg,  302. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  94. 

Franklin,  William  B.,  292,  294. 

Frederick  City,  Md.,  319. 

Fredericksburg,  Va.,  defeat  at,  301;  ef 
fect  of  the  defeat,  303. 

Freeport,  111.,  Lincoln  and  Douglas  de 
bate  at,  150-151. 

Free  Soil  Party,  organization  of,  104; 
leaders  of,  104-105. 

Fremont,  John  C.,  in  Mexican  War,  101; 
organization  of  the  Republican  par 
ty,  125;  candidate  for  the  Presiden 
cy,  127;  defeated,  128;  appointed 
Major-General,  232;  proclaims  mar 
tial  law  in  Missouri,  232;  correspond 
ence  with  the  President,  232;  re 
signs,  288;  candidacy  in  opposition 
to  Lincoln  and  withdrawal,  386,  383; 
hostility  to  the  Blairs,  390. 

GANSON,  JOHX  B.,  365. 

Garneld,  James  A.,  on  slavery,  98;  at 
Middle  Creek,  274;  Chickamauga, 
332;  speech  on  Thirteenth  Amend 
ment,  362-363. 

Garrison,  William  L.,  102. 

Geary,  John  W.,  territorial  governor  of 
Kansas,  114. 

Gentry,  Allen,  26. 

Georgia,  the  cruiser,  381;  captured,  382; 

Gettysburg,  battle  of,  319-325;  consecra 
tion  of  National  cemetery,  327-30; 
Lincoln's  address  at,  329. 

Giddings,  Joshua  R.,  102;  member  of 
Buffalo  convention,  104,  105;  in  Chi 
cago  convention,  165-166. 

Gibbon,  John,  at  battle  of  Gettysburg, 
322,  323,  324. 

Gillespie,  Joseph,  74. 

Goldsborough,  Lewis  M.,  277. 

Goldsboro,  N.  C.,  418. 

Gordon,  Dr.,  270. 

Gosport  Navy-Yard,  seizure  of,  213. 

Grand  Gulf,  Miss.,  315. 

Granger,  Gordon,  at  capture  of  Mobile, 
383. 

Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  attacks  Belmont.  274; 
Fort  Donelson,  275;  "unconditional 


460 


INDEX. 


surrender,"  275;  Shiloh,  276-277; 
personal  equipment,  281,  316;  sent 
against  Vtcksburg,  313;  boldness  of 
his  operations,  314;  on  the  Missis 
sippi,  314-315;  Port  Gibson,  315-316; 
invests  and  captures  Vicksburg,  316- 
317;  letter  from  the  President,  318; 
in  command  of  the  division  of  the 
Mississippi,  333;  Lookout  Mountain, 
333-334;  friendship  of  Washburne, 
369;  modesty  of,  370;  visits  the  capi 
tal,  370;  commissioned  Lieutenant- 
General,  370-371;  visits  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  371;  returns  to  his  com 
mand,  371;  assumes  command  of  all 
the  armies,  372;  letter  from  the 
President,  372;  his  reply,  372-373; 
the  Virginia  campaign,  373;  his 
subordinates,  373;  the  "Wilderness, 
Spottsylvania  Court  House,  North 
Anna,  and  Cold  Harbor,  374;  selects 
Sheridan  to  oppose  Early,  376;  cor 
respondence  with  Sherman,  379;  re 
fuses  to  be  a  candidate  for  the  Presi 
dency,  389;  congratulates  Lincoln  on 
his  re-election,  394;  on  retaliatory 
measures,  412;  "the  Peace  Makers" 
meeting  with  Lincoln  and  Sherman, 
419-423;  letter  to  Sheridan,  424;  cap 
tures  Richmond,  424-425;  surrender 
of  Lee,  425;  at  Sherman's  headquar 
ters,  426;  Lincoln's  tribute  to,  428; 
attends  a  cabinet  meeting,  429;  pre 
vented  from  accompanying  the  Pres 
ident  to  the  theatre,  430;  at  Lincoln's 
funeral,  436. 

Greeley,  Horace,  supports  Taylor,  105; 
158;  167;  letters  to  the  President, 
254,  256;  Lincoln's  reply,  255;  de 
mands  foreign  intervention,  303;  op 
poses  Lincoln's  re-nomination,  385; 
correspondence  with  Lincoln,  395- 
396. 

Green,  Bill,  35. 

Greene,  Bolin,  41. 

Grimes,  James  W.,  in  the  Senate,  2-1, 
246. 

Grow,  Galusha  A.,  220. 

Gulf  States,  ports  blockaded,  213. 

HAGEUSTOWN,  MD.,  319. 
Hahn,  Michael,  Governor  of    Louisiana, 
415. 


Hale,  John  P.,  in  the  Senate,  77,  108, 
221 ;  member  of  Free  Soil  party,  105; 
opposes  the  Nebraska  bill,  110;  op 
poses  the  release  of  Mason  and  Sli- 
dell,  236. 

Halleck,  Henry  W.,  at  battle  ol  Pea 
Ridge,  275;  at  Corinth,  277;  appoint 
ed  General-in-Chief,  287;  correspond 
ence  with  McClellan,  290-293;  charg 
es  McClellan  with  the  responsibility 
of  Pope's  defeat,  294;  orders  to  Mc 
Clellan,  297;  visits  camp  of  Buru- 
side,  300;  appoints  Meade  to  succeed 
Hooker,  319. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  36,  94. 

Hamilton,  Andrew  J.,  loyalty  of,  77,  218. 

Hamilton,  William  S.,  in  Black  Hawk 
war,  36. 

Hamlin,  Hannibal,  169,  220,  238,  390. 

Hampton  Roads  conference,  399-400. 

Hancock,  Winfield  S.,  at  Gettysburg,  321, 
322,  323;  in  Virginia,  373. 

Hanks,  Dennis,  24,  27. 

Hanks,  Nancy,  17-20. 

Hanks,  Thomas,  161,  162. 

Hardee,  William  J.,  381,418. 

Hardin,  John  J.,  in  Illinois  Legislature, 
51;  elected  to  Congress,  72,  73. 

Harding,  George  P.,  90. 

Harlan,  James,  in  the  Senate,  221. 

Harper's  Ferry,  213,  224,  295-296,  297. 

Harris,  Ira,  in  Congress,  221;  at  Lincoln's 
assassination,  431. 

Harris,  Isham  G.,  208. 

Harrisburg,  Pa.,  185,  186. 

Harrison,  William  H..  66. 

Hay,  John,  180. 

Hayne,  Robert  Y.,  139,  241,  346. 

Ilazen,  William  B.,  captures  Fort  McAl 
lister,  381. 

Head,  Rev.  Jesse,  17. 

Healy,  G.  P.  A.,  419,  423. 

Henderson,  John  B.,  346. 

Hendricks,  Thomas  A.,  351. 

Henry,  Dr.,  39. 

Henry,  Patrick,  15,  91,  94,  145. 

Ht-rndon,  William  H.,  letter  to  Arnold, 
31;  partnership  with  Lincoln,  73; 
letters  from  Lincoln,  78,  80;  on 
Lincoln's  Springfield  and  Peoria 
speeches,  118,  119. 

Hickman,  John,  249. 


INDEX. 


461 


Hicks,  Thomas  H.,  protests  against 
troops  marching  through  Maryland, 
207;  on  the  arrest  of  the  Maryland 
Legislature,  234. 

Hill,  Ambrose  P.,  189;  at  battle  of  Get 
tysburg,  321. 

Hingham,  Mass.,  14. 

Hodges,  A.  G.,  letter  from  the  President, 
232-233,  343-344. 

Holcombe,  James  P.,  396-397. 

Hood,  John  B.,  at  Atlanta,  378,  379,  re 
pulsed  at  Franklin,  380,  418. 

Hooker,  Joseph,  Burnside  demands  re 
moval  of,  303;  Lincoln's  letter  to, 
304;  defeated  at  Chancellorsville, 
304 ;  asks  to  be  relieved  of  command, 
319;  at  Lookout  Mountain,  333-334. 

Holt,  Joseph,  Secretary  of  War,  174;  or 
der  to  Twiggs,  197. 

Holmes,  Oliver  W.,  444. 

Hospital  at  Washington,  374-375. 

Houston,  Sam,  votes  against  the  Nebras 
ka  bill,  110-111. 

Howard,  Jacob  M.,  350. 

Howard,  Oliver  O.,  at  battle  of  Gettys 
burg,  320,  321,  323,  324. 

Howe,  Timothy  O.,  221. 

Humphreys,  Andrew  A.,  at  Gettysburg, 
323. 

Hunter,  David,  in  Kansas  struggle,  114. 
emancipation  order  of,  232,  344; 
raises  the  llrst  negro  regiment,  246; 
captures  Fort Pulaski, 277;  atLynch- 
burg,  375,  376. 

Hunter,  Robert  M.  T.,  77,223;  at  Hamp 
ton  Roads  Conference, 399-400. 

ILES,  ELIJAH,  in  the  Black  Hawk  war, 
35. 

Illinois,  Lincoln  settles  in,  28;  situation 
and  advantages  of,  29-30 ;  Lincoln's 
allegiance  to,  29;  the  first  to  ratify 
the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  367. 

Ingersoll,  Ebon  C.,  365. 

Island  No.  10,  275-276. 

Iverson,  Alfred,  177. 

JACKSON,  ANDREW,  17,  130,  278. 
Jackson,   Claiborne  F.,   refuses  to  raise 

troops  for  the  Union,  208,  212. 
Jackson,  Thomas  J.  (Stonewall),  292,296, 

301;  death  of,  304;  Lincoln's  tribute 

to,  305. 
Jackson,  Miss.,  317. 


Jay,  John,  94,  130. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  94,  95,  244,  246,  270, 
351. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  77;  Union  leader  in 
Tennessee,  197;  loyalty  of,  218;  in 
the  Senate,  221;  replies  to  Brecken- 
ridge,  226;  denunciation  of  Davis, 
226;  Provisional  Governor  of  Ten 
nessee,  275;  nominated  for  the  Vice- 
Presidency,  389-390;  takes  oath  of 
office,  401;  takes  oath  of  Presiden 
tial  office, 434. 

Johnson,  Herschel  V.,  nominated  for  the 
Vice-Presidency,  161. 

Johnson,  Reverdy,  90;  speech  on  Thir 
teenth  Amendment,  349-350. 

Johnson,  Mrs.  Sally,  step-mother  of  the 
President,  marries  Thomas  Lincoln, 
21 ;  attachment  to  her  step-son,  21 ; 
her  children,  22. 

Johnston,  Albert  S.,  at  battle  of  Shiloh, 
276;  death  of,  277. 

Johnston,  Joseph  E.,  at  Lincoln's  inau 
guration,  189;  at  Bull  Run,  231;  on 
McClellan's  inactivity,  284;  retreat 
to  Murf reesboro,  303 ;  in  command, 
377;  surrenders  to  Sherman,  426. 

Judd,  Norman  B.,  in  Illinois  Legislature, 
122;  letter  from  Lincoln,  154;  161; 
in  the  Chicago  Convention,  163,  166, 
168. 

KANSAS,  struggle  between  freedom  and 
slavery,  112-114,  128-129;  coloniza 
tion  of,  112;  free  state  emigration  to, 
113;  oppressions  of  the  slave  party, 
114;  territorial  government,  114;  Le- 
compton  constitution,  128;  conven 
tion  at  Topeka,  128. 

Kaskaskia,  15,  30. 

Kasson,  John  A.,  speech  on  Thirteenth 
Amendment,  360. 

Kearsarge,  the,  engages  and  destroys  the 
Alabama,  281-282. 

Keitt,  Lawrence  M.,  172. 

Kellogg,  William,  222. 

Kenesaw  Mountain,  Tenn.,  378. 

Kenton,  Simon,  16,  18. 

Kentucky  Hunters,  16-17,18. 

Kilpatrick,  Judson,  336. 

King,  Preston,  member  of  Buffalo  con 
vention,  104;  in  Free  Soil  party,  105; 
In  the  Senate,  221;  393. 


462 


INDEX. 


King,  Thomas  B.,  106. 
Kirkpatrick,  William,  34. 
Knoxville,  Term.,  331. 

LAMBOEK,  JOSIAH,  57,  65,  141. 

Lane,  Henry  S,,  in  the  Senate,  222. 

Lane,  James  H.,  in  the  Kansas  struggle, 
113. 

Lane,  Joseph,  candidate  for  the  Vice- 
Presidency,  161. 

La  Salle,  de,  Robert,  30. 

Lecompton  Constitution,  128. 

Lee,  Kobert  E.,  at  Lincoln's  inaugura 
tion,  189;  advances  toward  the 
North,  261;  sends  Beauregard  to  the 
West,  276;  letter  from  J.  E.  Johns 
ton,  284;  threatens  the  capital,  289; 
letter  to  Stuart  intercepted,  289 ;  ad 
vances  towards  Maryland,  293-294; 
battle  of  Antietam,  296 ;  Fredericks- 
burg,  300-301;  in  Maryland,  318; 
occupies  Chambersburg,  319;  battle 
of  Gettysburg,  321,  323-325;  re- 
crosses  the  Potomac,  332;  the  Wil 
derness,  374 ;  in  command  of  all  the 
Confederate  forces,  400;  correspond 
ence  with  Grant,  412;  appoints 
Johnston  to  oppose  Sherman,  418; 
desires  peace,  419;  last  despairing 
efforts,  425;  message  to  Davis,  425; 
surrenders  to  Grant,  425. 

Lincoln,  Abraham.  Early  life.  Ances 
try,  14-13;  autobiography,  14-15; 
birth,  17;  moves  to  Indiana,  18; 
settles  near  Gentry ville,  18;  in 
structed  in  reading  and  writing  by 
his  mother,  19-20;  death  and  burial 
of  his  mother,  19-20;  attends  school, 
20;  anecdote  of  his  school-boy  days, 
20;  books  of  his  boyhood,  21; 
words  of  his  stepmother  concerning 
him,  21;  familiarity  with  the  Bible, 
21;  his  food  and  dress,  22;  works 
three  days  to  earn  a  book,  23 ;  his 
studies,  24 ;  his  retentive  memory, 
24;  what  a  companion  says  of  him, 
24;  attends  court  at  Boonville,  25; 
desires  to  become  a  lawyer,  25;  his 
handwriting,  25;  studies  surveying, 
25,  41;  trip  to  New  Orleans,  26;  hab 
its,  26;  physical  strength,  26;  aids 
a  drunken  man.  27;  removes  to  Illi 
nois,  settles  in  Macon  county,  strikes 


out  for  himself,  28 ;  employed  by 
Denton  Offutt  at  New  Salem,  30;  re 
visits  New  Orleans,  30;  first  contact 
with  slavery,  30-31;  a  companion's 
account  of  his  indignation,  31; 
prophecy  of  a  Voudou  negress,  31; 
returns  to  New  Salem,  31;  the  Clary 
Grove  Boys,  32-33 ;  encounter  with 
Jack  Armstrong,  32;  candidate  for 
the  Legislature,  37;  is  defeated,  37; 
partnership  with  Berry,  37;  fails  in 
business,  38;  "Honest  Abe,"  38; 
postmaster  at  New  Salem,  38;  "Un 
cle  Sam's  money,"  39-40;  studies 
law,  40;  his  goods  sold  under  judg 
ment,  bid  in  by  Bolin  Greene,  41; 
oration  on  Greene's  death,  41-42;  first 
love,  42;  death  of  Anne  Kutledge, 
42-43;  favorite  poem,  43;  at  the  age 
of  twenty-five,  45. 

In  the  Black  Hawk  War.  Boone's 
grandson  a  fellow-soldier,  16;  is 
granted  land  by  the  government  for 
services,  17;  volunteers,  34;  elected 
captain,  34;  saves  the  life  of  an  In 
dian,  34-35;  discharged,  35;  volun 
teers  a  second  time,  35;  a  private  in 
Elijah  lies' s  company,  35;  his  fel 
low-soldiers,  35-36;  bravery  of,  36; 
mustered  out  of  service  by  Kobert 
Anderson,  36;  returns  home,  37; 
campaign  speech,  37. 

In  Illinois  Legislature.  Elected  to 
the  Legislature,  44 ;  residence  at  Van- 
dalia,  46;  removes  to  Springfield,  4tr, 
"on  the  stump,"  47;  lightning  rod 
anecdote,  47-49;  replies  to  Forquer, 
48;  replies  to  Dr.  Early,  49;  replies 
to  Col.  Dick  Taylor,  49-50;  the  "long 
nine,"  50;  supports  ship-canal  bill, 
51;  removal  of  the  capital  to  Spring 
field,  51;  colleagues  in  the  House,  50- 
51;  anti-slavery  protest,  52;  again 
elected  to  Legislature,  53;  partner 
ship  with  Stuart,  entry  into  Spring 
field,  53-54;  anecdote  illustrating  his 
tenderness  of  heart,  55;  practices 
law,  55;  pioneer  court  rooms,  56;  cir 
cuit  riding,  56-59 ;  re-elected  to  the 
Legislature,  59;  review  of  his  work 
in  the  Legislature,  59-60. 

In  Congress.  Nominated  against 
Peter  Cartwright,  73;  elected,  73;  in 


INDEX. 


463 


Thirtieth  Congress,  76;  impressions 
made  upon  his  associates,  77-78; 
prominence  in  debate,  78;  letter  to 
Herndon,  78;  speech  on  Mexican  war, 
78-79;  speech  against  Cass,  79;  the 
Taylor  campaign,  79-80;  speaks  for 
Taylor  in  New  York  and  New  Eng 
land,  80;  votes  against  paying  for 
slaves  lost  in  Seminole  war,  80;  term 
expires,  80. 

In  private  life.  Lecture  before 
Young  Men's  Lyceum  at  Springfield, 
61,  342;  temperance  address,  65-66; 
partnership  with  Judge  Logan,  66; 
on  Whig  electoral  ticket,  66;  log 
cabin  campaign,  66-67;  attends  Whig 
meeting  at  Springfield,  67;  protects 
Baker  from  a  mob,  67-68;  becomes 
the  suitor  of  Miss  Todd,  69;  his  duel, 
69-71;  marriage,  72;  partnership  with 
Herndon.  73-74;  entertains  Martin 
Van  Buren,  74;  fails  to  get  appointed 
to  the  land  office,  81 ;  declines  Gov 
ernorship  of  Oregon,  81;  his  family, 
81-82;  engages  in  his  profession,  82; 
his  home  life  described,  82-83;  in 
come,  83;  property,  83;  personal  ap 
pearance,  83;  legal  ability,  84;  law 
cases,  84-90;  fee  from  Illinois  Cen 
tral  Kailroad,  89;  case  of  McCor- 
mtck  versus  Manny,  89-90;  dines 
with  Mr.  Arnold,  90;  as  an  orator, 
90;  aroused  by  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  115;  his 
motto,  115;  efforts  in  behalf  of  the 
Republican  party,  115;  as  a  states 
man,  115;  compared  with  celebrated 
orators,  116;  called  upon  to  reply  to 
Douglas  at  Springfield,  117;  effect 
of  the  reply,  118;  replies  to 
Douglas  at  Peoria,  118,  119-120; 
Douglas's  discomfiture  and  appeal  to 
Lincoln's  generosity,  118-119;  eulogy 
of  Henry  Clay,  24,  121;  nominated 
by  Judge  Logan  for  the  Senate, 
122;  withdraws  in  favor  of  Trumbull, 
122-123;  leader  of  the  Republican 
party,  125;  sent  for  by  the  Blooming- 
ton  convention, 126;  candidate  for  the 
Vice-Presidency  at  the  Philadelphia 
convention,  127;  speaks  for  Fremont 
and  Dayton,  128;  again  nominated 
for  the  Senate,  132;  speech  at  the 


Springfield  convention,  Io2-138;  al 
lusion  to  Douglas,  144;  visits  Kansas, 
155;  speech  against  slavery,  366- 
367. 

The  Lincoln  and  Douglas  Debate, 
38,  46,  78;  importance  of  the  debate, 
139;  Lincoln  and  Douglas  compared, 
140-142;  debate  at  Chicago,  1.43;  at 
Springfield,  143,  advantages  over 
Douglas,  144-145;  debate  at  Charles 
ton,  147-149;  at  Freeport,  150-151; 
at  Alton,  151-152;  defeated  for  the 
Senatorship,  153;  visits  Chicago,  154; 
retires  to  Springfield,  154;  letter  to 
Judd,  154;  campaign  expenses,  154. 

Candidate  for  the  Presidency.  In 
terview  with  Mr.Fell,155 ;  visits  Ohio, 
156;  speaks  at  Columbus  and  Cincin 
nati,  156;  consents  to  his  candida 
ture,  157;  Cooper  Institute  speech, 
157-158;  visits  New  England,  159; 
letter  to  Judd,  161-162;  at  Decatur 
convention,  162;  the  "rail  candi 
date,"  162;  nominated  for  the  Presi 
dency,  164-169;  receives  the  news 
of  his  nomination,  169;  popular  en 
thusiasm,  169;  the  campaign,  170; 
elected  President,  171;  departure  for 
Washington,  183;  farewell  address, 
183;  journey  to  the  Capital,  184;  as 
sassination  plots,  184-185;  speech  in 
Independence  Hall,  185-186. 

In  the  White  House.  Interview  with 
Robert  Anderson,  36 ;  surveying  anec 
dote,  41;  commissions  Butterfield's 
son,  81;  letters  to  WTashburne,  176- 
177;  conceptions  of  his  duty,  178; 
belief  in  gradual  emancipation,  178; 
religious  character  of  his  mind,  178- 
179;  interview  with  Bateman,  178- 
179;  his  optical  illusion,  180;  ar 
rives  at  Washington,  186;  kindly 
feelings  towards  the  South,  188;  the 
inauguration,  188-192;  his  self-pos 
session,  189;  inaugural  address,  190- 
192;  announces  his  cabinet,  194;  II- 
lusti-ation  of  Southern  prejudices, 
198-200;  calls  for  volunteers,  200; 
lack  of  sympathy  from  foreign  na 
tions,  203-204;  surrender  of  Sumter, 
204;  uprising  of  the  North,  205-206; 
supported  by  the  Northwest,  208; 
blockade  of  the  Gulf  States,  213; 


464 


INDEX. 


foreign  policy,  217;  extra  session  of 
Congress,  220;  message  to  Congress, 
224-225;  asks  men  and  money  of 
Congress,  225;  acts  criticised  by  ab 
olitionists,  229;  death  of  Lovejoy, 
229;  acts  sanctioned  by  Congress, 
230;  Bull  Kun,  231;  embarrassed  by 
Fremont's  actions,  232;  correspond 
ence  with  Fremont,  232;  letter  to 
Hodges,  232-233,  343-344;  arrest  and 
release  of  Mason  and  Slidell,  234- 
236;  message  to  Congress,  237-238; 
funeral  orations  in  Congress  In  honor 
of  Baker,  238;  approves  bill  for 
emancipation  In  the  District  of  Co 
lumbia,  244;  on  arming  the  negroes, 
247;  Trumbull's  remarks  In  the  Sen 
ate,  248;  again  urges  gradual  eman 
cipation,  248;  confers  with  Border 
State  members,  249-250;  appeals  to 
the  slave  States,  251;  Interview  with 
Lovejoy  and  Arnold,  251;  second  an 
nual  message,  251-252;  replies  to 
Greeley,  255;  McClellan's  warning, 
256;  Lovejoy's  apostrophe,  258;  sub 
mits  draft  of  the  Proclamation  to 
his  cabinet,  260-261;  delays  issuing 
the  Proclamation,  261;  news  of  the 
battle  of  Antietam,  262;  submits  sec 
ond  draft  of  the  Proclamation  to  his 
cabinet,  262;  the  Proclamation  the 
work  of  the  President  alone,  263; 
remarks  to  Seward  on  signing  the 
Proclamation,  265;  effect  produced 
by  the  document,  266;  letter  in  re 
gard  to  the  original  draft  of  the  Pro 
clamation,  267;  congratulations  of 
the  British  people,  268;  sneers  of  the 
British  Government,  268;  validity  of 
the  Proclamation,  269;  scarcity  of 
experienced  officers,  272;  general 
plan  of  the  war,  273;  McClellan's  in 
activity,  279-287,  297-299;  military 
operations  In  the  West,  274-276;  op 
erations  in  the  South,  277-279 ;  letter 
to  McClellan,  284;  his  forbearance, 
285;  visits  camp  of  McClellan,  287; 
supported  by  the  convention  of  loyal 
Governors,  289;  calls  for  additional 
volunteers,  289;  reinstates  McOel- 
lan,  297;  letter  to  McClellan,  297- 
299;  relieves  McClellan  of  command, 
299;  Frederlcksburg,  300-301;  Gree 


ley  demands  foreign  intervention* 
303;  dissensions  In  the  army,  the 
cabinet,  and  in  Congress,  303-304; 
letter  to  Hooker,  304;  Chancellors- 
ville,  304;  tribute  to  Stonewall  Jack 
son,  305;  public  opinion,  306;  com 
municates  Proclamation  to  Congress, 
307-309;  suspension  of  habeas  cor 
pus,  312;  on  Grant,  313;  military  op 
erations  under  Grant,  313-317;  letter 
to  Grant,  318;  announces  the  victory 
of  Gettysburg,  326-327;  is  serenaded, 
326;  Gettysburg  address,  329;  con 
scription  riots  in  New  York,  336;  in 
vited  to  Springfield  meeting  of  Union 
men,  836;  letter  to  James  C.  Conk- 
ling,  337-340;  support  of  the  people, 
341;  review  of  Anti-Slavery  position, 
342-345;  urges  passage  of  the  Thir 
teenth  Amendment,  357;  called  upon 
by  Morgan,  358 ;  interview  with  Bor 
der  State  members,  358-359;  passage 
of  the  amendment,  365;  "the  job 
ended,"  366;  commissions  Grant 
Lieutenant-General,  370-371;  letter 
to  Grant,  372;  Grant's  reply,  372-373; 
visits  hospitals,  374-375;  witnesses 
Early's  repulse,  376;  foresees  early 
termination  of  the  war,  383;  close  of 
the  first  term,  384;  organized  oppo 
sition  to  renomination  of,  384;  sup 
ported  by  the  people,  384-386;  nomi 
nated  for  second  term,  389;  visited 
by  Judge  Peck,  390-391;  the  Presi 
dential  canvass,  392-393;  letter  to  an 
Illinois  office-holder,  393;  re-elected 
by  an  overwhelming  majority,  393; 
Grant  telegraphs  congratulations, 
394;  correspondence  with  Greeley, 
395-396;  Interview  with  a  western 
editor,  397-398;  Hampton  Roads  con 
ference,  399-400;  second  Inaugura 
tion,  401-405;  inaugural  address,  403- 
404 ;  interview  with  Dr.  Bellows,  406- 
407;  sympathy  with  suffering,  409; 
tenderness  of  heart,  410;  Intimacy 
with  Sunnier,  411;  retaliatory  meas 
ures  urged  upon  him,  410-412;  visits 
Sanitary  Fair  at  Baltimore,  412-413; 
views  on  Reconstruction,  413-415; 
letter  to  Governor  Hahn,  415;  views 
on  negro  suffrage,  415-416;  loyalty 
to  the  frcedinen,  416;  Lee  desires 


INDEX. 


465 


peace,  419;  instructions  to  Grant, 
419;  "the  Peace  Makers,"  meeting 
with  Grant  and  Sherman,  419-423; 
surrender  of  Lee,  426;  at  City  Point, 
426;  visits  Richmond,  427;  joy 
of  the  negroes,  427;  returns  to  Wash 
ington,  427;  receives  congratulations, 
428;  tribute  to  Grant,  428;  plans  for 
the  future,  429-430;  attends  the  the 
atre,  431;  assassinated,  432;  death, 
433;  grief  of  the  nation,  434;  funer 
al,  435-436;  funeral  procession  to 
Springfield,  436-438;  expressions  of 
sympathy  from  abroad,  433;  buried 
in  Oak  Ridge  cemetery,  438;  person 
al  characteristics,  441-442;  tender 
ness  of  heart,  442-443; love  of  truth, 
443;  retentive  memory,  443;  favorite 
books,  444-445;  conversational  abili 
ties,  445-446;  influence  on  national 
character,  445-446;  religious  views, 
447-449;  review  of  his  life  work, 
449-450  ;  charges  of  coarseness, 
451  ;  life  and  habits  in  the  White 
House,  451-453 ;  careworn  appear 
ance,  453-454  ;  close  application  to 
duties,  454 ;  Lincoln  and  Washington, 
454. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  grandfather  of  the 
President,  emigrates  to  Kentucky, 
14-15;  receives  land  from  the  gov 
ernment,  15;  a  comrade  of  Daniel 
Boone,  16;  killed  by  Indians,  16. 

Lincoln,  John,  great-grandfather  of  the 
President,  14. 

Lincoln,  Josiah,  uncle  of  the  President, 
16. 

Lincoln,  Mary  Todd,wif  e  of  the  President, 
visits  Springfield,  68;  ancestry,  68;  ac 
complishments,  69;  personal  descrip 
tion,  69;  her  ambition,  69;  "aunt  Re 
becca,"  70-71;  marriage,  72;  family 
cares,  82;  entertainments,  82-83;  vis 
its  Richmond,  427;  attends  the  thea 
tre,  430;  grief  at  the  President's  as 
sassination,  433,  438;  treatment  by 
the  press,  439-440. 

Lincoln,  Mordecai,  great- great-grand 
father  of  the  President,  16. 

Lincoln,  Mordecai,  uncle  of  the  Presi 
dent,  16. 

Lincoln,  Nancy  Hanks,  mother  of  the 
President,  marriage,  17;  ancestry, 


17;  exceptional  abilities,    19;  death* 
19;  funeral,  19-20. 

Lincoln,  Robert  T.,  birth,  81;  on  Grant's 
staff,  427;  returns  to  Washington, 
429;  at  the  death  of  the  President 
433. 

Lincoln,  Sarah,  sister  of  the  President, 
17,  19,  22. 

Lincoln,  Thomas,  father  of  the  Presi 
dent,  birth,  16;  marriage  with  Nancy 
Hanks,  17;  receives  land  from  the 
government,  17;  death  of  his  wife,, 
19;  marriage  with  Mrs.  Sally  John 
son,  21;  removes  to  Illinois  and  set 
tles  In  Coles  County,  28;  death,  28;. 
generosity  of  his  son,  29. 

Lincoln  Family,  not  connected  with  New 
England  Lincolns,  14;  characteristics 
of,  17;  compared  with  the  Warwicks 
and  others,  18. 

Lincoln  and  Douglas  debate,  38,  46,  78; 
importance  of,  139;  at  Chicago,  143; 
at  Springfield,  143;  at  Charleston,. 
147-149;  at  Freeport,  150-151;  at  Al 
ton,  151-152. 

Lindsey,  Judge,  271. 

Logan,  John,  51. 

Logan,  John  A.,  223,  316. 

Logan,  Stephen  T.,  57;  in  Illinois  Legis 
lature,  65;  partnership  with  Lincoln, 
66,  73;  nominates  Lincoln  for  the 
Senate,  122;  disappointment  at  Lin 
coln's  defeat,  123. 

Longfellow,  Henry  W.,  letter  to  Arnold, 
142. 

Longstreet,  James,  292;  at  Gettysburg, 
321,  322;  sent  into  Tennessee,  332- 
333;  Knoxville,  334;  ordered  to  join. 
Lee,  424. 

Lookout  Mountain,  Tenn.,  333-334. 

Louisville,  Ky.,  threatened  by  Bragg's 
army,  3C2. 

Lovejoy,  Elijah  P.,  102,  170. 

Lovejoy,  Owen,  102;  supports  Lincoln 
for  Senator,  123;  at  the  grave  of  his 
brother,  170;  in  Congress,  222; 
charged  with  negro  stealing,  227- 
228;  the  President's  friendship  to 
wards,  229;  resolution  of  thanks  to 
Wilkes,  234,236 ;  introduces  a  fugitive 
slave  bill,  242;  amends  Arnold's  bill, 
245;  calls  on  the  President,  251; 
replies  to  Crittenden,  257-258. 


466 


INDEX. 


Lowell,  James  R.,  170. 

Lynchburg,  Va.,  375-376. 

Lyon,  Nathaniel,  In  Kansas  struggle,  114; 

removes  arms  from  St.  Louis  arsenal, 

212. 
Lyons,  Lord,  British  minister,  207. 


LAND  GKORGE  B.,  on  interference 
with  slaves,  219;  before  Bull  Run, 
231;  called  to  command,  231-232;  or 
ganizes  the  army,  233;  orders  arrest 
-of  the  members  of  the  Maryland 
Legislature,  233-234;  on  the  Poto 
mac,  237;  offers  advice  to  the  Pres 
ident,  256;  numerical  strength  of  his 
army,  273;  impatience  of  the  Presi 
dent  at  his  inactivity,  273-274,  279- 
287,  297-299  ;  council  of  war  at  Fair 
fax  Court  House,  282;  letter  from  the 
President,  2  84  ;  presumptuous  letter  to 
the  President,  286  ;  hostility  to  Pope, 
289;  ordered  to  cooperate  with  Pope, 
and  failure  to  do  80,289-290;  corre 
spondence  with  Halleck,  290-293; 
charged  with  the  responsibility  of 
Pope's  defeat,  294;  again  in  com 
mand,  294;  Antietam,  296;  letter 
from  the  President,  297-299  ;  relieved 
from  command,  299;  retires  to  New 
Jersey,  299:  nominated  for  the  Pres 
idency,  391;  defeated,  393. 

McClernand,  John  A.,  in  Illinois  Legisla 
ture,  51;  in  Congress,  76,  223,  229. 

McCullough,  Ben.,  197. 

McDougall,  James  A.,  eulogy  of  Douglas, 
202;  eulogy  of  Baker,  239;  anecdote 
of,  241;  votes  against  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment,  351  ;  opposes  retaliation, 
410-411. 

McDowell,  Irwin,  at  Bull  Kun,  231. 

McLean,  John,  55,  57,  89,  131. 

McPherson,  James  B.,  316;  death,  378. 

Madison,  James,  209. 

Magoffin,  Beriah,  208. 

Magruder,  John    B.,  283,  311. 

Mallory,  Col  ,  218-219. 

Malvern  Hill,  Va.,  retreat  to,  285. 

Manassas  Junction,  Va.,  280,  302. 

Marshall,  Humphrey,  defeated  at  Middle 
Creek,  274,  362. 

Marshall,  John,  130. 

Maryland,  efforts  for  secession,  211;  Leg 
islature  arrested,  233-234. 


Maryland  Heights,  Va.,  297. 

Mason,  James  M  ,  77;  address  to  people 
of  Virginia,  210;  arrest  and  release 
of,  234-236. 

Maynard,  Horace,  197,  221. 

Meade,  George  G.,  succeeds  Hooker  in 
command,  319;  address  to  his  army, 
319;  Gettysburg,  319-325;  fails  to 
follow  up  his  victory,  327,  332. 

Meigs,  Montgomery  C.,  visits  camp  of 
Burnside,  300;  battle  of  Fredericks- 
burg,  300-301. 

Memminger,  Charles  G.,  173. 

Merrimac,  engagement  with  the  Monitor, 
282-283. 

Merryman,  Dr.,  70. 

Mexican  War,  101. 

Middle  Creek,  Ky.,  274. 

Middletown,  Va  ,  377. 

Miles,  D.  S.,  295. 

Miller,  Samuel  F.,  270. 

Mill  Spring,  Ky.,  274. 

Minnesota,  frigate,  runs  aground,  282. 

Missionary  Ridge,  Tenn.,  333-334. 

Missouri  Compromise,  99;  repeal  of,  111- 
112,  115,  244. 

Mitchell,  O.  M.,  at  Bowling  Green,  275. 

Mobile,  Ala.,  captured  by  Farragut,  383. 

Monitor,  engagement  with  the  Merrimac, 
282-283. 

Montgomery,  Ala.,  convention  of  Confed 
erates,  180;  provisional  government 
organized,  180,  196. 

Morgan,  Edwin  D.,  in  Chicago  conven 
tion,  163;  assists  the  government, 
205;  calls  on  the  President,  358. 

Morrill,  Lot  M.,  in  Congress,  221. 

Morris,  Robert,  94. 

Murfreesboro,  Tenn.,  303. 

NASHVILLE,  TENN.,  occupied  by  Union 
troops,  275;  battle  of,  380. 

Natchez,  Miss.,  279. 

Nebraska  Bill,  introduced  in  Senate,  109; 
struggle  against,  110;  passage,  111. 

Negroes,  see  Slavery. 

Nelson,  Homer  A.,  365. 

Nesmith,  George  W.,  239. 

Newbern,  N.  C.,  277. 

New  Madrid,  Mo.,  275. 

New  Orleans,  La.,  26,  31;  military  im 
portance  of,  277-278;  capture  of, 
279. 


INDEX. 


467 


New  Salem,  111.,  32,  37,  38,  39. 

New  York,  Anti-Slavery  society  organ 
ized  in,  94 ;  Cooper  Institute  meeting, 
157-158;  conscription  riots,  335-336. 

North  Anna,  Va.,  374. 

Nye,  James  W.,  168. 

ODELL,  MOSES  F.,  365. 

Offutt,  Denton,  30,  31,  32,  33. 

Oglesby,  Richard  J.,  162. 

Olin,  Abraham  B.,  249. 

Opequan,  Va.,  376. 

Ord,  E.  O.  C.,  425. 

Ordinance  of  1787,  95,  244,  346,  347,  351. 

Orth,  G.  S.,  359. 

Osterhaus,  Peter  J.,  316. 

PALFREY,  JOHN  G.,  76,  296,  299. 

Palmer,  John  M.,  122. 

Patterson,  Eobert,  battle  of  Bull  Run, 
231. 

Paulding  James  K.,  74. 

Peace  Convention  at  Washington,  176. 

Peach  Tree  Creek,  Ga.,  378. 

Pea  Ridge,  Ark.,  275. 

Peck,  Ebenezer,  74,  390-391. 

Pemberton,  John  C.,  316;  surrenders 
Vicksburg,  317. 

Pendleton,  George  II.,  222;  opposes  joint 
resolution,  355;  nominated  for  the 
Vice-Presidency,  391. 

Penn,  William,  30. 

Peoria,  111.,  speeches  of  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  at,  118-120. 

Perryville,  Ky.,  302. 

Petersburg,  Va.,  capture  of,  423-425. 

Peterson,  Mr.,  removal  of  the  President 
after  the  assassination  to  the  house 
of,  433. 

Philadelphia,  Pa.,  first  general  Congress 
of  the  colonies  at,  94;  first  Anti- 
Slavery  society  organized  at,  94; 
capital  removed  from,  97;  Republi 
can  convention  of  1856  at,  127;  speech 
of  Lincoln  in  Independence  Hall, 
185-186 

Phillips,  Wendell,  102,  139,  170. 

Pickett,  George  E.,  at  Gettysburg,  324. 

Piedmont,  Va.,  375. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  108,  114,  117,  197. 

Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  Republican  convention 
of  1856  at,  125. 

Pleasant,  Robert,  94. 

Polk,  James  K.,  79,  101. 


Pomeroy,  Samuel  C.,  113. 

Poole,  William  F.,  94,  95,  351. 

Pope,  John,  campaign  on  the  Mississippi, 
275-276;  in  command  of  Army  of 
Virginia,  288;  address  to  his  army, 
288;  strength  of  his  army,  289;  Mc- 
Clellan's  failure  to  cooperate  with, 
290;  retreats  to  Washington,  292-294: 
302. 

Pope,  Nathaniel,  55,  57-58,  287. 

Porter,  David  D.,  at  Grand  Gulf,  315;  at 
Vicksburg,  317;  visits  Richmond,  427. 

Porter,  Fitz-John,  291,  292-294. 

Port  Gibson,  Miss.,  315-316. 

Port  Royal,  S.  C.,  231. 

Prentice,  George  D.,  33. 

Preston,  William,  216. 

Preston,  William  B.,  311. 

RANDALL,  SAMUEL  J.,  355. 

Rathbone,  Maj.,  at  Lincoln's  assassina 
tion,  431-432 

Raymond,  Henry  J.,  303. 

Reconstruction,  Lincoln's  views  on,  413- 
414. 

Reno,  Jesse  L.,  reinforces  Pope,  289. 

Republican  party,  Lincoln's  efforts  for, 
115;  organization  of,  124;  leaders  of, 
125-128;  convention  at  Pittsburgh, 
125;  convention  at  Philadelphia,  127; 
Chicago  convention,  161-169;  Balti 
more  convention.  387-389. 

Resaca,  Ga.,  378. 

Reynolds,  John,  Governor  of  Illinois,  34, 
35. 

Reynolds,  John  F.,  killed  at  Gettysburg, 
319-320. 

Rhett,  Robert  B.,  77,  172. 

Richmond,  Va.,  convention  of  1860,  161; 
capital  of  the  Confederacy,  214;  Grant 
commences  campaign  against,  373; 
surrender  of,  423-425;  set  on  fire  by 
the  Confederates,  426-427. 

Richardson,  William  A.,  51,   76,  159-223. 

Ringgold,  Ga.,  334. 

Rives,  William  C.,  130. 

Roanoke  Island,  N.  C.,  277. 

Robinson,  John  C.,  at  Gettysburg,  319. 

Robinson,  Charles,  113. 

Rocky  Face,  Ga.,  377. 

Rollins.  James  S.,  interview  with  the 
President,  358-359;  speech  in  favor 
of  Thirteenth  Amendment,  360-362. 


468 


INDEX. 


Rosecrans,  "William  S.,  succeeds  Buell, 
302;  battle  of  Stone  River,  303; 
Chickamauga,  332;  relieved  of  com 
mand,  333. 

Rush,  Benjamin,  94. 

Rushvillc,  111.,  34. 

Russell,  Lord  John,  268,  269. 

Rutledge,  Anne,  42-43. 

Rutledge,  James,  42. 

SANDERS,  GEORGE  H.,  396. 

Sangamon  "Long  Nine,"  50. 

Sanitary  Commission,  406-408;  fair  at 
Baltimore,  412-413. 

San  Jacinto,  the,  intercepts  the  Trent, 
234. 

Saulsbury,  Willard,  349. 

Savannah,  Ga.,  capture  of,  380-381. 

Schofleld,  John  M.,  380, 392,  418. 

Schurz,  Carl,  at  battle  of  Gettysburg, 
320. 

Scott,  Winfield,  in  Mexican  "War,  101; 
defeated  for  the  Presidency,  108; 
holds  the  secessionist  leaders  at  bay, 
173;  at  Lincoln's  inauguration,  175, 
186-187,  189;  reply  to  secessionists, 
201;  retires  from  the  army,  232,  233; 
offended  by  McClellan,  273-274. 

Secession,  meeting  in  "Washington,  177; 
ordinance  of  adopted  by  the  seceding 
states,  178;  convention  at  Montgom 
ery  and  organization  of  provisional 
government,  180. 

Sedgwick,  Charles  B.,  in  Congress,  222. 

Sedgwick,  John,  at  battle  of  Gettysburg, 
322,  in  Virginia,  373-374. 

Semmes,  Raphael,  218,  381. 

Seward,  Frederick  W.,  apprises  Lincoln 
of  assassination  plot,  186;  attempt  to 
assassinate  the  father  of,  434. 

Seward  William  H.,  90;  supports  Taylor, 
105;  in  the  Senate,  108,  141;  opposes 
Nebraska  bill,  110;  candidate  at  Chi 
cago  convention,  164,  165,  167;  168; 
apprises  Lincoln  of  assassination  plot, 
186 ;  meets  Lincoln  on  his  arrival  at 
the  capital,  186;  at  Lincoln's  inau 
guration,  189;  Secretary  of  State, 
194;  instructions  to  Adams,  217;  op 
posed  to  the  release  of  Mason  and 
Slidell,  235;  at  services  in  honor  of 
Baker,  238;  suggests  postponement 
of  Emancipation  Proclamation,  261; 


his  share  in  drawing  up  the  Procla 
mation,  261,  262;  remarks  of  the 
President  on  signing  the  Proclama 
tion,  265-266;  speech  at  Roches 
ter,  343;  announces  the  ratification 
of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  c67- 
368;  correspondence  with  Arnold, 
368;  Hampton  Roads  conference, 
399-400;  attempted  assassination  of, 
433-434. 

Seymour,  Horatio,  addresses  rioters,  336, 
392. 

Sheridan,  Philip  H.,  281,325,  333;  defeats 
Early,  376-377;  at  Richmond,  423-424, 
425. 

Sherman,  John,  in  the  Senate,  221. 

Sherman, William  T.,  at  battle  of  Lookout 
Mountain,333-334;  Grant's  opinion  of, 
370;  in  command  of  the  division  of  the 
Mississippi,  371,  372;  account  of  his 
campaign,  377-378  ;  removes  inhab 
itants  of  Atlanta,  378;  reply  to  pro 
test  of  the  mayor,  378-379;  corre 
spondence  with  Grant,  379;  marches 
through  Georgia,  380-381;  enters  Co 
lumbia,  418;  opposed  by  Johnston, 
418;  "the Peace  Makers,"  interview 
with  Lincoln  and  Grant,  419-423;  let 
ter  to  Arnold,  420-423. 

Shields,  James,  in  Illinois  Legislature, 
51;  anecdote  of,  58;  his  duel  with 
Lincoln,  69-71;  defeated  for  the  Sen 
ate,  122. 

Shiloh,  battle  of,  276-277. 

Sickles,  Daniel  E.,  at  battle  of  Gettys 
burg,  321-323. 

Sigel,  Franz,  212. 

Slavery,  Lincoln's  first  contact  with,  80- 
31;  protest  of  Lincoln  and  Stone 
against,  52;  bill  to  abolish  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia,  80;  early  history 
of,  92-107;  introduced  into  the  colo 
nies,  93;  protest  of  Virginia,  93;  tol 
erated  as  a  temporary  evil,  93 ;  first 
Anti-Slavery  society  organized  in 
Philadelphia,  94;  other  societies,  94; 
Pennsylvania  passes  a  law  for  gradual 
emancipation,  95;  ordinance  of  1787, 
95;  "  King  Cotton,"  96;  politics  con 
trolled  by  the  slaveholders,  96;  apa 
thy  of  the  free  states,  96;  Tennessee 
admitted  as  a  slave  state,  97;  the 
capital  located  on  slave  territory,  97; 


INDEX. 


469 


more  slave  states  admitted,  97-98; 
growth  of  the  slave  power,  98;  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  99;  absolute 
power  of  the  slaveholders,  100;  the 
Wilmot  Proviso,  101-102;  the  Amer 
ican  Anti-Slavery  society,  102;  per 
secutions  of  the  abolitionists,  103; 
growth  of  the  Anti- Slavery  party, 
103;  Buffalo  convention  of  1848,  104; 
organization  of  the  Free  Soil  party, 
and  its  effect,  104-105;  attempt  to  ad 
mit  California  as  a  slave  state  and 
its  failure,  106;  slave  trade  abolished 
at,  the  national  capital,  107;  new  fu 
gitive  slave  law,  107;  the  Nebraska 
bill,  109-111;  struggle  for  Kansas, 
112-114,  128-129;  Lincoln's  Peoria 
speech,  119-120;  the  struggle  in  Con 
gress,  124;  Anti-Slavery  convention 
at  Bloomington,  125 ;  Dred  Scott  case, 
130-131;  the  corner  stone  of  the  Con 
federacy,  214-215;  slaves  declared 
contraband  of  war,  219;  action  of 
Thirty-seventh  Congress,227-229 ;  law 
forbidding  arrest  of  fugitive  slaves, 
242;  Emancipation  in  District  of  Col 
umbia,  243-244;  bill  to  prohibit 
slavery  in  the  territories,  245-246; 
arming  of  the  negroes,  246;  the  Proc 
lamation  of  September  22d,  263- 
264:  final  Proclamation,  264-265; 
emancipation  of  slaves  by  the  Brit 
ish  during  the  Tlevolution,  270;  ne 
groes  included  in  the  conscription 
bill,  309;  review  of  Lincoln's  actions 
in  regard  to  slavery,  343-345;  abo 
lition  accomplished,  345;  the  Thir 
teenth  Amendment,  343-368. 

Slidell,  John,  at  Washington  secession 
meeting,  177;  arrest  and  release  of, 
234-236. 

Sloat,  Commodore,  101. 

Slocum,  Henry  W.,  at  battle  of  Gettys 
burg,  321,  322,  323. 

Smith,  Caleb  B.,  76;  Secretary  of  the  In 
terior,  194,  196. 

Smith,  Gerrit,  102. 

Smith,  S.  Lisle,  67. 

Soldiers'  Home,  Washington,  251,  262. 

Spaulding,  E.  G.,  in  Congress,  222. 

Speed,  Joshua  F.,  47,  48,  53-54,  54-55. 

Spottsylvauia  Court  House,  Va.,  374. 


Sprague,  William,  raises  a  regiment  for 
the  Union,  205. 

Springfield,  111.,  Whig  meeting  at,  67; 
State  fair  of  1854,  117;  debate  at, 
143;  meeting  of  Union  men  at,  336; 
arrival  of  the  President's  remains 
at,  438. 

Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  90;  succeeds  Black 
in  Buchanan's  cabinet,  174;  applauds 
Captain  Wilkes's  act,  235;  at  ceremo 
nies  in  honor  of  Baker,  238;  Secreta 
ry  of  War,  241,  429. 

Stetson,  Col.,  entertains  Massachusetts 
troops,  206. 

Stephens,  Alexander  II.,  description  of 
Lincoln,  77-78;  opposes  secession, 
175:  Vice-President  of  the  Confede 
racy,  190,  203;  personal  description, 
181-182;  "onto  Washington,"  210; 
utterance  on  Slavery,  214;  on  Eman- 
pation,  269;  at  the  Hampton  Roads 
conference,  399-400. 

Stevens,  Thaddeus,  222 ,  warning  to  rebel 
slaveholders,  228;  bill  for  Emancipa 
tion  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  243 ; 
on  gradual  Emancipation,  249;  speech 
on  Thirteenth  Amendment,  363-365, 
417. 

Stewart,  Charles,  calls  on  Douglas,  193. 

Stiles,  Dr.  Ezra,  94. 

Stokes,  Captain,  transfers  arms  from  St. 
Louis  arsenal,  212. 

Stone,  Dan.,  52. 

Stone  River,  Tenn.,  303. 

Stowe,  Mrs.  II.  B.,  170. 

Stringfellow,  Gen.,  in  Kansas  struggle, 
113. 

Stuart,.!.  E.  B.,  289,  297. 

Stuart,  John  T.,  35;  assists  Lincoln,  40; 
partnership  with  Lincoln,  53;  elected 
to  Congress,  66,  72. 

Sullivan,  Rev.  John,  159. 

Sumner,  Charles,  104;  member  of  the 
Free  Soil  party,  105;  in  the  Senate, 
108,  221;  opposes  the  Nebraska  bill, 
110;  assaulted  in  Congress,  170;  at 
Lincoln's  inauguration,  189;  allusion 
to  Breckenrldge,  225;  eulogy  of  Ba 
ker,  239;  expects  the  approval  of 
Great  Britain  on  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation,  268;  closes  the  debate 
on  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  350. 


470 


INDEX. 


351;  opposes  retaliation,  410-411; 
fidelity  to  Lincoln's  widow,  440. 

Sun  Tavern,  Philadelphia,  first  Anti- 
Slavery  society  organized  at,  94. 

Surratt,  Mrs.,  434. 

Swift,  Mr.,  of  Illinois,  163. 

Swinton,  William,  296. 

Sykes,  George,  at  Gettysburg,  323. 

TALMADGE,  JAMES,  130. 

Taney,  Roger  B.,  decision  in  Dred  Scott 
case,  131;  at  Lincoln's  inauguration, 
189;  death,  394. 

Taylor,  Col.  Dick,  49-50. 

Taylor,  Zachary,  in  Black  Hawk  war,  35- 
36;  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  37, 
79,  104;  elected,  80,  105;  Lincoln 
seeks  an  appointment  from,  81;  in 
Mexican  war,  101. 

Tecumseh,  the,  destruction  of,  383. 

Tennessee,  ram,  382-383. 

Tennessee  river,  274.  333. 

Terry,  Alfred  H.,  captures  Fort  Fisher, 
418. 

Thomas,  Jesse  B.,  58,  65. 

Thomas,  George  H.,  at  battle  of  Mill 
Creek,  274;  at  Chlckamauga,  332;  in 
command  of  the  army  of  the  Cum 
berland,  333;  battle  of  Lookout  Moun 
tain,  333-334;  defeats  Hood,  380. 

Thirteenth  Amendment,  the,  importance 
of,  345;  joint  resolution  in  Congress, 
346;  debate  in  the  Senate,  347-351; 
adopted  by  the  Senate,  351;  Arnold's 
test  resolution,  352-353;  discussion 
in  the  House,  353-356;  resolution  de 
feated,  356;  passage  urged  by  the 
President  at  next  session,  357;  de 
bate  in  the  House,  359-365;  passage 
of  the  Amendment,  365;  ratification 
by  the  states,  367-8. 

Todd,  John,  15,  68. 

Todd,  Levi,  68. 

Todd,  Robert  S. ,  68. 

Toombs,  Robert,  77, 174,  177,  223. 

Toucey,  Isaac,  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
173. 

Treat,  Judge,  67,  86. 

Trent,  the,  intercepted  by  the  San  Jacin- 
to,  234. 

Trumbull, Lyman,  57;  elected  to  Senate, 
122-123;  125;  141;  221;  240;  attacked 
in  Douglas's  speech,  149;  introduces 


bill  for  freeing  slaves  used  by  the 
Confederates  in  carrying  on  the  war, 
238;  on  Lincoln,  247-248;  the  Thir 
teenth  Amendment,  347-348,  351. 
Twiggs,  David  E.,  197,  218,  278. 

VALLANDIGHAM,  CLEMENT  L.,  in  Con- 
gress,222;  arrest  of,  311;  defeated  for 
Governor ,341 ;  in  Democratic  conven 
tion  of  1864,  391. 

Van  Buren,  John, 75,  105. 

VauBuren,  Martin,  74,  98,   104,  202,  221. 

Vicksburg,  Miss.,  assault  on,  302;  object 
ive  point  of  the  campaign  in  the 
West,  312-313;  military  operations  in 
the  vicinity  of,  313-316;  capture  of, 
317. 

Voorhees,  Daniel  W.,  359. 

WADE,  BENJAMIN  F.,  at  Lincoln's  inau 
guration,  189;  in  the  Senate,  221;  pro 
poses  retaliatory  measures,  410;  417. 

Wadsworth,  James  S.,  at  battle  of  Get 
tysburg,  319,  320;  letter  from  the 
President,  415-416. 

Waite,  Carlos  A.,  197. 

Walker,  L.  P.,  160,  161. 

Wallace,  Lewis,  at  battle  of  Shiloh,  277; 
delays  Early's  advance,  376. 

Wallace,  W.  H.  L.,  death  at  Shiloh,  276- 
277. 

War  powers,  309-312. 

Warren,  G.  K.,  at  battle  of  Gettysburg, 
322 ;  the  Wilderness,  373-374. 

Washburne,  Elihu  B.,  36,  111;  letters 
from  Lincoln,  176-177;  meets  Lincoln 
on  his  arrival  at  the  capital,  186;  in 
Congress,  222,  241  ;  accompanies 
Grant,  316;  friendship  for  Grant,  369- 
370. 

Washington,  D.  C.,  capital  located  at,  97; 
peace  convention  at,  176;  proximity 
of  the  Confederate  forces,  37C. 

Washington,  George,  26, 94,  209,  241,  336, 
404,  454. 

Webster,  Daniel,  77,  107,  10S,  139,  141, 
241,346,349,351,413. 

Weed,  Thurlow,  167,  168. 

Weitzel,  Godfrey,  425,  427. 

Welles,  Gideon,  Secretary  of  the  Navy; 
194,196. 

Wentworth,  John,  in  Congress,  76. 

West  Point,  218. 


INDEX. 


471 


West  Virginia  admitted  to  the  Union, 
309. 

White,  Julius,  295. 

Whitesides,  Gen.,  70. 

Whitney,  Eli,  96. 

Whittier,  John  G.,  102,  170,  260 

Wigfall,  Lewis  T.,  at  Washington  seces 
sion  meeting,  177. 

Wilderness,  battle  of  the,  374. 

Wilkes,  Charles,  arrests  Mason  and  Sli- 
dell,  234. 

Wilmot,  David,  101,  105,  125,  163,  221. 

Wilmot  Proviso,  the,  101,  102,  106. 

Wilson,  Henry,  105;  in  the  Senate,  221; 
242;  introduces  bill  for  the  Emanci 
pation  of  slaves  in  District  of  Colum- 
bia,243; speech  oil  Thirteenth  Amend 
ment,  348-349. 


Wilson,  James  F.,  346,  352,  353. 
Wilson,  Robert  L.,  51,  53. 
Winchester,  Va.,  377. 
Winslow,  John  A.,  In  command  of  the 

Kearsarge,  381. 
Winthrop,  Robert  C.,  76,  77. 
Wise,  Henry  A.,  101,  172. 
Wood,  Fernando,  3C3. 
Woodbridge,  Frederick    E.,   speech    on 

Thirteenth  Amendment,  360. 
Wool,  John  E.,  272,  283. 
Wright,  Horatio  G.,  376. 
Wright,  Silas,  98,  159,  221. 

YAXCEY,  WILLIAJI  L.,  In  Charleston  con 
vention,  161. 

ZOLLIKOFFER,  F.  K.,  death  of,  274. 


RETURN  TO  the  circulation  desk  ot  any 
University  of  California  Library 

or  to  the 

NORTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 
Bldg.  400,  Richmond  Field  Statjpn 
University  of  California 
Richmond,  CA  94804-4698 


KlRLF 


ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

•  2-month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling 
(510)642-6753 

•  1-year  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing 
books  to  NRLF 

•  Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4 
days  prior  to  due  date. 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 

h  i:  H  2  6  1997 

SENT  ON  ILL 


JUI  25  1997 


U.  C.  BERKELEY 


12,000(11/95) 


JAN  2b  — 

LD9-30m-12,'76(T2555s8)4185 — S-87 


f 


•  Aj,    ' 

X 


A? 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


I 


